MIEN 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

Gift  of 
MRS.   RUTH  CASEY 


WHEN  GOD  LAUGHS 

AND    OTHER   STORIES 


BY 

JACK  LONDON 

AUTHOR  OF  "MARTIN  EDEN,"  "CALL  OF  THE  WILD/ 
"WHITE  FANG,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


INTERNATIONAL  FICTION  LIBRARY 
CLEVELAND  NEW  YORK 

Made  in  U.S.  A. 


Copyright,  1911, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


PRESS  OF 

THE  COMMERCIAL  BOOKBINDING  CO. 
CLEVELAND 


WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

(WiTH  COMPLIMENTS  TO  HARRY  COWELL) 

"The  gods,  the  gods  are  stronger;  time 
Falls  down  before  them;  all  men's  knees 
Bow,  all  men's  prayers  and  sorrows  climb 
Like  incense  toward  them;  yea,  for  these 
Are  gods,  Felise." 

GARQUINEZ      had      relaxed      finally, 
He  stole  a  glance  at  the  rattling  win 
dows,  looked   upward   at  the  beamed 
roof,  and  listened  for  a  moment  to  the  savage 
roar  of  the  southeaster  as  it  caught  the  bunga 
low  in  its  bellowing  jaws.     Then  he  held  his 
glass  between  him  and  the  fire  and  laughed  for 
joy  through  the  golden  wine. 

"It  is  beautiful,"  he  said.  "It  is  sweetly 
sweet.  It  is  a  woman's  wine,  and  it  was  made 
for  gray-robed  saints  to  drink." 

"We  grow  it  on  our  own  warm  hills,"  I  said, 
with  pardonable  California  pride.  "You  rode 

3 


4  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

up  yesterday  through  the  vines  from  which  it 
was  made." 

It  was  worth  while  to  get  Carquinez  to  loosen 
up.  Nor  was  he  ever  really  himself  until 
he  felt  the  mellow  warmth  of  the  ^vine  singing 
in  his  blood.  He  was  an  artist,  it  is  true,  always 
an  artist;  but  somehow,  sober,  the  high  pitch 
and  lilt  went  out  of  his  thought-processes  and 
he  was  prone  to  be  as  deadly  dull  as  a  British 
Sunday  —  not  dull  as  other  men  are  dull,  but 
dull  when  measured  by  the  sprightly  wight  that 
Monte  Carquinez  was  when  he  was  really 
himself. 

From  all  this  it  must  not  be  inferred  that 
Carquinez,  who  is  my  dear  friend  and  dearer 
comrade,  was  a  sot.  Far  from  it.  He  rarely 
erred.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  an  artist.  He 
knew  when  he  had  enough,  and  enough,  with 
him,  was  equilibrium  —  the  equilibrium  that 
is  yours  and  mine  when  we  are  sober. 

His  was  a  wise  and  instinctive  temperateness 
that  savored  of  the  Greek.  Yet  he  was  far  from 
Greek.  "I  am  Aztec,  I  am  Inca,  I  am  Span 
iard,"  I  have  heard  him  say.  And  in  truth  he 


WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS  5 

looked  it,  a  compound  of  strange  and  ancient 
races,  what  of  his  swarthy  skin  and  the  asym 
metry  and  primitiveness  of  his  features.  His 
eyes,  under  massively  arched  brows,  were  wide 
apart  and  black  with  the  blackness  that  is 
barbaric,  while  before  them  was  perpetually 
falling  down  a  great  black  mop  of  hair  through 
which  he  gazed  like  a  roguish  satyr  from  a 
thicket.  He  invariably  wore  a  soft  flannel  shirt 
under  his  velvet-corduroy  jacket,  and  his  neck 
tie  was  red.  This  latter  stood  for  the  red  flag 
(he  had  once  lived  with  the  socialists  of  Paris), 
and  it  symbolized  the  blood  and  brotherhood 
of  man.  Also,  he  had  never  been  known  to 
wear  anything  on  his  head  save  a  leather- 
banded  sombrero.  It  was  even  rumored  that 
he  had  been  born  with  this  particular  piece  of 
headgear.  And  in  my  experience  it  was  pro 
vocative  of  nothing  short  of  sheer  delight  to  see 
that  Mexican  sombrero  hailing  a  cab  in  Picca 
dilly  or  storm-tossed  in  the  crush  for  the  New 
York  Elevated. 

As    I  have  said,  Carquinez  was  made    quick 
by  wine  —  "  as  the  clay  was  made  quick  when 


6  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

God  breathed  the  breath  of  life  into  it,"  was 
his  way  of  saying  it.  I  confess  that  he  was 
blasphemously  intimate  with  God;  and  I  must 
add  that  there  was  no  blasphemy  in  him.  He 
was  at  all  times  honest,  and,  because  he  was 
compounded  of  paradoxes,  greatly  misunder 
stood  by  those  who  did  not  know  him.  He 
could  be  as  elementally  raw  at  times  as  a  scream 
ing  savage;  and  at  other  times  as  delicate  as  a 
maid,  as  subtle  as  a  Spaniard.  And  —  well, 
was  he  not  Aztec  ?  Inca  ?  Spaniard  ? 

And  now  I  must  ask  pardon  for  the  space  I 
have  given  him.  (He  is  my  friend,  and  I  love 
him.)  The  house  was  shaking  to  the  storm,  as 
he  drew  closer  to  the  fire  and  laughed  at  it 
through  his  wine.  He  looked  at  me,  and  by  the 
added  lustre  of  his  eye,  and  by  the  alertness  of  it, 
I  knew  that  at  last  he  was  pitched  in  his  proper 
key. 

"And  so  you  think  you've  won  out  against  the 
gods?"  he  demanded. 

"Why  the  gods?" 

"Whose  will  but  theirs  has  put  satiety  upon 
man?"  he  cried. 


WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS  7 

"  And  whence  the  will  in  me  to  escape  satiety  ? " 
I  asked  triumphantly. 

"Again  the  gods,"  he  laughed.  "It  is  their 
game  we  play.  They  deal  and  shuffle  all  the 
cards  .  .  .  and  take  the  stakes.  Think  not 
that  you  have  escaped  by  fleeing  from  the  mad 
cities.  You  with  your  vine-clad  hills,  your  sun 
sets  and  your  sunrises,  your  homely  fare  and 
simple  round  of  living ! 

"I've  watched  you  ever  since  I  came.  You 
have  not  won.  You  have  surrendered.  You 
have  made  terms  with  the  enemy.  You  have 
made  confession  that  you  are  tired.  You  have 
flown  the  white  flag  of  fatigue.  You  have 
nailed  up  a  notice  to  the  effect  that  life  is  ebbing 
down  in  you.  You  have  run  away  from  life. 
You  have  played  a  trick,  shabby  trick.  You 
have  balked  at  the  game.  You  refuse  to  play. 
You  have  thrown  your  cards  under  the  table  and 
run  away  to  hide,  here  amongst  your  hills." 

He  tossed  his  straight  hair  back  from  his  flash 
ing  eyes,  and  scarcely  interrupted  to  roll  a  long, 
brown,  Mexican  cigarette. 

"But  the  gods  know.     It  is  an  old  trick.     All 


8  WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS 

the  generations  of  man  have  tried  it  ...  and 
lost.  The  gods  know  how  to  deal  with  such  as 
you.  To  pursue  is  to  possess,  and  to  possess 
is  to  be  sated.  And  so  you,  in  your  wisdom, 
have  refused  any  longer  to  pursue.  You  have 
elected  surcease.  Very  well.  You  will  become 
sated  with  surcease.  You  say  you  have  escaped 
satiety !  You  have  merely  bartered  it  for  sen 
ility.  And  senility  is  another  name  for  satiety. 
It  is  satiety's  masquerade.  Bah  ! " 

"But  look  at  me!"  I  cried. 

Carquinez  was  ever  a  demon  for  haling  one's 
soul  out  and  making  rags  and  tatters  of  it. 

He  looked  me  witheringly  up  and  down. 

"You  see  no  signs,"  I  challenged. 

"Decay  is  insidious,"  he  retorted.  "You  are 
rotten  ripe." 

I  laughed  and  forgave  him  for  his  very  deviltry. 
But  he  refused  to  be  forgiven. 

"Do  I  not  know?"  he  asked.  "The  gods 
always  win.  I  have  watched  men  play  for  years 
what  seemed  a  winning  game.  In  the  end  they 
lost." 

"Don't  you  ever  make  mistakes  ?"  I  asked. 


WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS  9 

He  blew  many  meditative  rings  of  smoke 
before  replying. 

"Yes,  I  was  nearly  fooled,  once.  Let  me  tell 
you.  There  was  Marvin  Fiske.  You  remem 
ber  him  ?  And  his  Dantesque  face  and  poet's 
soul,  singing  his  chant  of  the  flesh,  the  very  priest 
of  Love  ?  And  there  was  Ethel  Baird,  whom 
also  you  must  remember." 

"A  warm  saint,"  I  said. 

"That  is  she!  Holy  as  Love,  and  sweeter! 
Just  a  woman,  made  for  love;  and  yet  —  how 
shall  I  say  ?  —  drenched  through  with  holiness 
as  your  own  air  here  is  with  the  perfume  of 
flowers.  Well,  they  married.  They  played  a 
hand  with  the  gods  — " 

"And  they  won,  they  gloriously  won!"  I 
broke  in. 

Carquinez  looked  at  me  pityingly,  and  his 
voice  was  like  a  funeral  bell. 

"They  lost.   They  supremely,  colossally  lost." 

"But  the  world  believes  otherwise,"  I  ven 
tured  coldly. 

"The  world  conjectures.  The  world  sees 
only  the  face  of  things.  But  I  know.  Has  it 


io  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

ever  entered  your  mind  to  wonder  why  she  took 
the  veil,  buried  herself  in  that  dolorous  convent 
of  the  living  dead  ?" 

"Because  she  loved  him  so,  and  when  he 
died  .  .  ." 

Speech  was  frozen  on  my  lips  by  Carquinez's 
sneer. 

"A  pat  answer,"  he  said,  "machine-made  like 
a  piece  of  cotton-drill.  The  world's  judgment ! 
And  much  the  world  knows  about  it.  Like  you, 
she  fled  from  life.  She  was  beaten.  She  flung 
out  the  white  flag  of  fatigue.  And  no  belea 
guered  city  ever  flew  that  flag  in  such  bitterness 
and  tears. 

"Now  I  shall  tell  you  the  whole  tale,  and  you 
must  believe  me,  for  I  know.  They  had  pon 
dered  the  problem  of  satiety.  They  loved  Love. 
They  knew  to  the  uttermost  farthing  the  value 
of  Love.  They  loved  him  so  well  that  they  were 
fain  to  keep  him  always,  warm  and  athrill  in 
their  hearts.  They  welcomed  his  coming;  they 
feared  to  have  him  depart. 

"Love  was  desire,  they  held,  a  delicious  pain. 
He  was  ever  seeking  easement,  and  when  he 


WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS  11 

found  that  for  which  he  sought,  he  died.  Love 
denied  was  Love  alive;  Love  granted  was  Love 
deceased.  Do  you  follow  me  ?  They  saw  it 
was  not  the  way  of  life  to  be  hungry  for  what  it 
has.  To  eat  and  still  be  hungry  —  man  has 
never  accomplished  that  feat.  The  problem  of 
satiety.  That  is  it.  To  have  and  to  keep  the 
sharp  famine-edge  of  appetite  at  the  groaning 
board.  This  was  their  problem,  for  they  loved 
Love.  Often  did  they  discuss  it,  with  all  Love's 
sweet  ardors  brimming  in  their  eyes;  his  ruddy 
blood  spraying  their  cheeks;  his  voice  playing 
in  and  out  with  their  voices,  now  hiding  as  a 
tremolo  in  their  throats,  and  again  shading  a  tone 
with  that  ineffable  tenderness  which  he  alone 
can  utter. 

"How  do  I  know  all  this?  I  saw —  much. 
More  I  learned  from  her  diary.  This  I  found  in 
it,  from  Fiona  Macleod :  'For,  truly,  that  wan 
dering  voice,  that  twilight-whisper,  that  breath 
so  dewy-sWeet,  that  flame-winged  lute-player 
whom  none  sees  but  for  a  moment,  in  a  rain 
bow-shimmer  of  joy,  or  a  sudden  lightning-flare 
of  passion,  this  exquisite  mystery  we  call  Amor, 


12  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

comes,  to  some  rapt  visionaries  at  least,  not  with 
a  song  upon  the  lips  that  all  may  hear,  or  with 
blithe  viol  of  public  music,  but  as  one  wrought  by 
ecstasy,  dumbly  eloquent  with  desire/ 

"How  to  keep  the  flame-winged  lute-player 
with  his  dumb  eloquence  of  desire  ?  To  feast 
him  was  to  lose  him.  Their  love  for  each 
other  was  a  great  love.  Their  granaries  were 
overflowing  with  plenitude;  yet  they  wanted 
to  keep  the  sharp  famine-edge  of  their  love 
undulled. 

"Nor  were  they  lean  little  fledglings  theorizing 
on  the  threshold  of  Love,  They  were  robust  and 
realized  souls.  They  had  loved  before,  with 
others,  in  the  days  before  they  met;  and  in  those 
days  they  had  throttled  Love  with  caresses,  and 
killed  him  with  kisses,  and  buried  him  in  the  pit 
of  satiety. 

"They  were  not  cold  wraiths,  this  man  and 
woman.  They  were  warm  human.  They  had 
no  Saxon  soberness  in  their  blood.  The  color 
of  it  was  sunset-red.  They  glowed  with  it. 
Temperamentally  theirs  was  the  French  joy  in 
the  flesh.  They  were  idealists,  but  their  ideal- 


WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS  13 

ism  was  Gallic.  It  was  not  tempered  by  the  chill 
and  sombre  fluid  that  for  the  English  serves  as 
blood.  There  was  no  stoicism  about  them. 
They  were  Americans,  descended  out  of  the 
English,  and  yet  the  refraining  and  self-denying 
of  the  English  spirit-groping  were  not  theirs. 

"They  were  all  this  that  I  have  said,  and  they 
were  made  for  joy,  only  they  achieved  a  concept. 
A  curse  on  concepts !  They  played  with  logic, 
and  this  was  their  logic.  —  but  first  let  me  tell 
you  of  a  talk  we  had  one  night.  It  was  of 
Gautier's  Madeline  de  Maupin.  You  remem 
ber  the  maid  ?  She  kissed  once,  and  once  only, 
and  kisses  she  would  have  no  more.  Not  that 
she  found  kisses  were  not  sweet,  but  that  she 
feared  with  repetition  they  would  cloy.  Satiety 
again  !  She  tried  to  play  without  stakes  against 
the  gods.  Now  this  is  contrary  to  a  rule 
of  the  game  the  gods  themselves  have  made. 
Only  the  rules  are  not  posted  over  the  table. 
Mortals  must  play  in  order  to  learn  the 
rules. 

"Well,  to  the  logic.  The  man  and  the  woman 
argued  thus :  Why  kiss  once  only  ?  If  to  kiss 


14  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

once  were  wise,  was  it  not  wiser  to  kiss  not  at  all  ? 
Thus  could  they  keep  Love  alive.  Fasting,  he 
would  knock  forever  at  their  hearts. 

"  Perhaps  it  was  out  of  their  heredity  that  they 
achieved  this  unholy  concept.  The  breed  will 
out,  and  sometimes  most  fantastically.  Thus 
in  them  did  cursed  Albion  array  herself  a  schem 
ing  wanton,  a  bold,  cold-calculating,  and  artful 
hussy.  After  all,  I  do  not  know.  But  this  I 
know :  it  was  out  of  their  inordinate  desire  for 
joy  that  they  forewent  joy. 

"As  he  said  (I  read  it  long  afterward  in  one 
of  his  letters  to  her)  :  'To  hold  you  in  my  arms, 
close,  and  yet  not  close.  To  yearn  for  you,  and 
never  to  have  you,  and  so  always  to  have  you/ 
And  she :  '  For  you  to  be  always  just  beyond  my 
reach.  To  be  ever  attaining  you,  and  yet  never 
attaining  you,  and  for  this  to  last  forever,  always 
fresh  and  new,  and  always  with  the  first  flush 
upon  us.' 

"That  is  not  the  way  they  said  it.  On  my 
lips  their  love-philosophy  is  mangled.  And  who 
am  I  to  delve  into  their  soul-stuff  ?  I  am  a  frog, 
on  the  dank  edge  of  a  great  darkness,  gazing 


WHEN   GOD    LAUGHS  15 

goggle-eyed  at  the  mystery  and  wonder  of  their 
flaming  souls. 

"And  they  were  right,  as  far  as  they  went. 
Everything  is  good  ...  as  long  as  it  is  un 
possessed.  Satiety  and  possession  are  Death's 
horses;  they  run  in  span. 

"'And  time  could  only  tutor  us  to  eke 

Our  rapture's  warmth  with  custom's  afterglow.' 

"They  got  that  from  a  sonnet  of  Alfred  Aus 
tin's.  It  was  called  'Love's  Wisdom.'  It  was 
the  one  kiss  of  Madeline  de  Maupin.  How  did 
it  run  ? 

"'Kiss  we  and  part;  no  further  can  we  go; 

And  better  death  than  we  from  high  to  low 
Should  dwindle,  or  decline  from  strong  to  weak.' 

"  But  they  were  wiser.  They  would  not  kiss 
and  part.  They  would  not  kiss  at  all,  and  thus 
they  planned  to  stay  at  Love's  topmost  peak. 
They  married.  You  were  in  England  at  the 
time.  And  never  was  there  such  a  marriage. 
They  kept  their  secret  to  themselves.  I  did 
not  know,  then.  Their  rapture's  warmth  did 
not  cool.  Their  love  burned  with  increasing 


16  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

brightness.  Never  was  there  anything  like  it. 
The  time  passed,  the  months,  the  years,  and 
ever  the  flame-winged  lute-player  grew  more 
resplendent. 

"Everybody  marvelled.  They  became  the 
wonderful  lovers,  and  they  were  greatly  envied. 
Sometimes  women  pitied  her  because  she  was 
childless ;  it  is  the  form  the  envy  of  such  crea 
tures  takes. 

"And  I  did  not  know  their  secret.  I  pondered 
and  I  marvelled.  As  first  I  had  expected,  sub 
consciously  I  imagine,  the  passing  of  their  love. 
Then  I  became  aware  that  it  was  Time  that 
passed  and  Love  that  remained.  Then  I  be 
came  curious.  What  was  their  secret  ?  What 
were  the  magic  fetters  with  which  they  bound 
Love  to  them  ?  How  did  they  hold  the  graceless 
elf?  What  elixir  of  eternal  love  had  they  drunk 
together  as  had  Tristram  and  Iseult  of  old  time  ? 
And  whose  hand  had  brewed  the  fairy  drink  ? 

"As  I  say,  I  was  curious,  and  I  watched  them. 
They  were  love-mad.  They  lived  in  an  unend 
ing  revel  of  Love.  They  made  a  pomp  and  cere 
monial  of  it.  They  saturated  themselves  in  the 


WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS  17 

art  and  poetry  of  Love.  No,  they  were  not 
neurotics.  They  were  sane  and  healthy,  and 
they  were  artists.  But  they  had  accomplished 
the  impossible.  They  had  achieved  deathless 
desire. 

"And  I  ?  I  saw  much  of  them  and  their 
everlasting  miracle  of  Love.  I  puzzled  and  won 
dered,  and  then  one  day — " 

Carquinez  broke  off  abruptly  and  asked, 
"Have  you  ever  read,  'Love's  Waiting  Time'  ?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

"  Page  wrote  it — Curtis  Hidden  Page,  I  think. 
Well,  it  was  that  bit  of  verse  that  gave  me  the 
clew.  One  day,  in  the  window-seat  near  the  big 
piano  —  you  remember  how  she  could  play  ? 
She  used  to  laugh,  sometimes,  and  doubt  whether 
it  was  for  them  I  came,  or  for  the  music.  She 
called  me  a  'music-sot,'  once,  a  'sound-de 
bauchee/  What  a  voice  he  had !  When  he 
sang  I  believed  in  immortality,  my  regard  for 
the  gods  grew  almost  patronizing,  and  I  devised 
ways  and  means  whereby  I  surely  could  outwit 
them  and  their  tricks. 

"It  was  a  spectacle  for  God,  that  man  and 
c 


i8  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

woman,  years  married,  and  singing  love-songs 
with  a  freshness  virginal  as  new-born  Love  him 
self,  with  a  ripeness  and  wealth  of  ardor  that 
young  lovers  can  never  know.  Young  lovers 
were  pale  and  anaemic  beside  that  long-married 
pair.  To  see  them,  all  fire  and  flame  and 
tenderness,  at  a  trembling  distance,  lavishing 
caresses  of  eye  and  voice  with  every  action, 
through  every  silence  —  their  love  driving  them 
toward  each  other,  and  they  withholding  like 
fluttering  moths,  each  to  the  other  a  candle-flame, 
and  revolving  each  about  the  other  in  the  mad 
gyrations  of  an  amazing  orbit-flight !  It  seemed, 
in  obedience  to  some  great  law  of  physics,  more 
potent  than  gravitation  and  more  subtle,  that 
they  must  corporeally  melt  each  into  each  there 
before  my  very  eyes.  Small  wonder  they  were 
called  the  wonderful  lovers. 

"I  have  wandered.  Now  to  the  clew.  One 
day  in  the  window-seat  I  found  a  book  of  verse. 
It  opened  of  itself,  betraying  long  habit,  to 
'  Love's  Waiting  Time/  The  page  was  thumbed 
and  limp  with  overhandling,  and  there  I 
read :  — 


WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS  19 

"'So  sweet  it  is  to  stand  but  just  apart, 
To  know  each  other  better,  and  to  keep 
The  soft,  delicious  sense  of  two  that  touch  .  .  . 

O  love,  not  yet !  .  .  .  Sweet,  let  us  keep  our  love 
Wrapped  round  with  sacred  mystery  awhile, 
Waiting  the  secret  of  the  coming  years, 
That  come  not  yet,  not  yet  .  .  .  sometime  .  .  .  not 
yet  ... 

Oh,  yet  a  little  while  our  love  may  grow! 
When  it  has  blossomed  it  will  haply  die. 
Feed  it  with  lipless  kisses,  let  it  sleep, 
Bedded  in  dead  denial  yet  some  while  .  .  . 
Oh,  yet  a  little  while,  a  little  while.' 

"I  folded  the  book  on  my  thumb  and  sat  there 
silent  and  without  moving  for  a  long  time.  I 
was  stunned  by  the  clearness  of  vision  the  verse 
had  imparted  to  me.  It  was  illumination.  It 
was  like  a  bolt  of  God's  lightning  in  the  Pit. 
They  would  keep  Love,  the  fickle  sprite,  the 
forerunner  of  young  life  —  young  life  that  is 
imperative  to  be  born ! 

"I  conned  the  lines  over  in  my  mind  —  'Not 
yet,  sometime'  —  'O  Love,  not  yet'  — 'Feed 
it  with  lipless  kisses,  let  it  sleep.'  And  I  laughed 
aloud,  ha !  ha !  I  saw  with  white  vision  their 


20  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

blameless  souls.  They  were  children.  They 
did  not  understand.  They  played  with  Nature's 
fire  and  bedded  with  a  naked  sword.  They 
laughed  at  the  gods.  They  would  stop  the  cos 
mic  sap.  They  had  invented  a  system,  and 
brought  it  to  the  gaming-table  of  life,  and  ex 
pected  to  win  out.  'Beware!'  I  cried.  'The 
gods  are  behind  the  table.  They  make  new 
rules  for  every  system  that  is  devised.  You  have 
no  chance  to  win/ 

"But  I  did  not  so  cry  to  them.  I  waited. 
They  would  learn  that  their  system  was  worth 
less  and  throw  it  away.  They  would  be  content 
with  whatever  happiness  the  gods  gave  them  and 
not  strive  to  wrest  more  away. 

"I  watched.  I  said  nothing.  The  months 
continued  to  come  and  go,  and  still  the  famine- 
edge  of  their  love  grew  the  sharper.  Never 
did  they  dull  it  with  a  permitted  love-clasp. 
They  ground  and  whetted  it  on  self-denial,  and 
sharper  and  sharper  it  grew.  This  went  on 
until  even  I  doubted.  Did  the  gods  sleep  ?  I 
wondered.  Or  were  they  dead  ?  I  laughed  to 
myself.  The  man  and  the  woman  had  made  a 


WHEN  GOD   LAUGHS  21 

miracle.  They  had  outwitted  God.  They  had 
shamed  the  flesh,  and  blackened  the  face  of  the 
good  Earth  Mother.  They  had  played  with  her 
fire  and  not  been  burned.  They  were  immune. 
They  were  themselves  gods,  knowing  good  from 
evil  and  tasting  not.  'Was  this  the  way  gods 
came  to  be?'  I  asked  myself.  'I  am  a  frog,' 
I  said.  'But  for  my  mud-lidded  eyes  I  should 
have  been  blinded  by  the  brightness  of  this  won 
der  I  have  witnessed.  I  have  puffed  myself  up 
with  my  wisdom  and  passed  judgment  upon 
gods.' 

"Yet  even  in  this,  my  latest  wisdom,  I  was 
wrong.  They  were  not  gods.  They  were  man 
and  woman  —  soft  clay  that  sighed  and  thrilled, 
shot  through  with  desire,  thumbed  with  strange 
weaknesses  which  the  gods  have  not." 

Carquinez  broke  from  his  narrative  to  roll 
another  cigarette  and  to  laugh  harshly.  It  was 
not  a  pretty  laugh ;  it  was  like  the  mockery  of  a 
devil,  and  it  rose  over  and  rode  the  roar  of  the 
storm  that  came  muffled  to  our  ears  from  the 
crashing  outside  world. 

"I  am  a  frog,"  he  said  apologetically.     "How 


22  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

were  they  to  understand  ?  They  were  artists, 
not  biologists.  They  knew  the  clay  of  the 
studio,  but  they  did  not  know  the  clay  of  which 
they  themselves  were  made.  But  this  I  will 
say  —  they  played  high.  Never  was  there 
such  a  game  before,  and  I  doubt  me  if  there  will 
ever  be  such  a  game  again. 

"Never  was  lovers'  ecstasy  like  theirs.  They 
had  not  killed  Love  with  kisses.  They  had 
quickened  him  with  denial.  And  by  denial 
they  drove  him  on  till  he  was  all  aburst  with 
desire.  And  the  flame-winged  lute-player 
fanned  them  with  his  warm  wings  till  they  were 
all  but  swooning.  It  was  the  very  delirium  of 
Love,  and  it  continued  undiminished  and  in 
creasing  through  the  weeks  and  months. 

"They  longed  and  yearned,  with  all  the  fond 
pangs  and  sweet  delicious  agonies,  with  an  in 
tensity  never  felt  by  lovers  before  nor  since. 

"And  then  one  day  the  drowsy  gods  ceased 
nodding.  They  aroused  and  looked  at  the  man 
and  woman  who  had  made  a  mock  of  them. 
And  the  man  and  woman  looked  into  each  other's 
eyes  one  morning  and  knew  that  something  was 


WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS  23 

gone.  It  was  the  flame-winged  one.  He  had 
fled,  silently,  in  the  night,  from  their  anchorites' 
board. 

"They  looked  into  each  other's  eyes  and  knew 
that  they  did  not  care.  Desire  was  dead.  Do  you 
understand  ?  Desire  was  dead.  And  they  had 
never  kissed.  Not  once  had  they  kissed.  Love 
was  gone.  They  would  never  yearn  and  burn 
again.  For  them  there  was  nothing  left  —  no 
more  tremblings  and  flutterings  and  delicious 
anguishes,  no  more  throbbing  and  pulsing,  and 
sighing  and  song.  Desire  was  dead.  It  had  died 
in  the  night,  on  a  couch  cold  and  unattended ;  nor 
had  they  witnessed  its  passing.  They  learned  it 
for  the  first  time  in  each  other's  eyes. 

"The  gods  may  not  be  kind,  but  they  are 
often  merciful.  They  had  twirled  the  little 
ivory  ball  and  swept  the  stakes  from  the  table- 
All  that  remained  was  the  man  and  woman  gaz 
ing  into  each  other's  cold  eyes.  And  then  he 
died.  That  was  the  mercy.  Within  the  week 
Marvin  Fiske  was  dead  —  you  remember  the  ac 
cident.  And  in  her  diary,  written  at  this  time,  I 
long  afterward  read  Mitchell  Kennedy's :  — 


*f.  WHEN   GOD   LAUGHS 

"'There  was  not  a  single  hour 

We  might  have  kissed  and  did  not  kiss.'" 

"Oh,  the  irony  of  it!"  I  cried  out. 

And  Carquinez,  in  the  firelight  a  veritable 
Mephistopheles  in  velvet  jacket,  fixed  me  with 
his  black  eyes. 

"And  they  won,  you  said  ?  The  world's 
judgment !  I  have  told  you,  and  I  know.  They 
won  as  you  are  winning,  here  in  your  hills." 

"  But  you,"  I  demanded  hotly ;  "you  with  you 
orgies  of  sound  and  sense,  with  your  mad 
cities  and  madder  frolics  —  bethink  you  that  you 
win?" 

He  shook  his  head  slowly.  "Because  you, 
with  your  sober  bucolic  regime,  lose,  is  no  reason 
that  I  should  win.  We  never  win.  Sometimes 
we  think  we  win.  That  is  a  little  pleasantry  of 
the  gods." 


THE  APOSTATE 


THE   APOSTATE 

Now  I  wake  me  up  to  work; 
I  pray  the  Lord  I  may  not  shirk. 
If  I  should  die  before  the  night, 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  work's  all  right. 


Amen. 


"TTF  you  don't  git  up,  Johnny,  I  won't  give 

you  a  bite  to  eat!" 

The  threat  had  no  effect  on  the  boy.  He 
clung  stubbornly  to  sleep,  righting  for  its  ob 
livion  as  the  dreamer  fights  for  his  dream. 
The  boy's  hands  loosely  clenched  themselves, 
and  he  made  feeble,  spasmodic  blows  at  the 
air.  These  blows  were  intended  for  his  mother, 
but  she  betrayed  practised  familiarity  in  avoid 
ing  them  as  she  shook  him  roughly  by  the 
shoulder. 

"Lemme  'lone!" 

It  was  a  cry  that  began,  muffled,  in  the  deeps 
of  sleep,  that  swiftly  rushed  upward,  like  a 
wail,  into  passionate  belligerence,  and  that 

27 


28  THE   APOSTATE 

died  away  and  sank  down  into  an  inarticulate 
whine.  It  was  a  bestial  cry,  as  of  a  soul  in 
torment,  filled  with  infinite  protest  and  pain. 

But  she  did  not  mind.  She  was  a  sad- 
eyed,  tired-faced  woman,  and  she  had  grown 
used  to  this  task,  which  she  repeated  every 
day  of  her  life.  She  got  a  grip  on  the  bed 
clothes  and  tried  to  strip  them  down;  but  the 
boy,  ceasing  his  punching,  clung  to  them  des 
perately.  In  a  huddle,  at  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
he  still  remained  covered.  Then  she  tried 
dragging  the  bedding  to  the  floor.  The  boy 
opposed  her.  She  braced  herself.  Hers  was 
the  superior  weight,  and  the  boy  and  bedding 
gave,  the  former  instinctively  following  the  latter 
in  order  to  shelter  against  the  chill  of  the  room 
that  bit  into  his  body. 

As  he  toppled  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  it 
seemed  that  he  must  fall  head-first  to  the 
floor.  But  consciousness  fluttered  up  in  him. 
He  righted  himself  and  for  a  moment  perilously 
balanced.  Then  he  struck  the  floor  on  his 
feet.  On  the  instant  his  mother  seized  him 
by  the  shoulders  and  shook  him.  Again  his 


THE   APOSTATE  29 

fists  struck  out,  this  time  with  more  force  and 
directness.  At  the  same  time  his  eyes  opened. 
She  released  him.  He  was  awake. 

"All  right,"  he  mumbled. 

She  caught  up  the  lamp  and  hurried  out, 
leaving  him  in  darkness. 

"You'll  be  docked,"  she  warned  back  to  him. 

He  did  not  mind  the  darkness.  When  he 
had  got  into  his  clothes,  he  went  out  into  the 
kitchen.  His  tread  was  very  heavy  for  so  thin 
and  light  a  boy.  His  legs  dragged  with  their 
own  weight,  which  seemed  unreasonable  be 
cause  they  were  such  skinny  legs.  He  drew  a 
broken-bottomed  chair  to  the  table. 

"Johnny!"    his  mother  called  sharply. 

He  arose  as  sharply  from  the  chair,  and, 
without  a  word,  went  to  the  sink.  It  was  a 
greasy,  filthy  sink.  A  smell  came  up  from  the 
outlet.  He  took  no  notice  of  it.  That  a  sink 
should  smell  was  to  him  part  of  the  natural 
order,  just  as  it  was  a  part  of  the  natural  order 
that  the  soap  should  be  grimy  with  dish-water 
and  hard  to  lather.  Nor  did  he  try  very  hard 
to  make  it  lather.  Several  splashes  of  the 


30  THE   APOSTATE 

cold  water  from  the  running  faucet  completed 
the  function.  He  did  not  wash  his  'teeth. 
For  that  matter  he  had  never  seen  a  tooth 
brush,  nor  did  he  know  that  there  existed 
beings  in  the  world  who  were  guilty  of  so  great 
a  foolishness  as  tooth  washing. 

"You  might  wash  yourself  wunst  a  day 
without  bein'  told,"  his  mother  complained. 

She  was  holding  a  broken  lid  on  the  pot  as 
she  poured  two  cups  of  coffee.  He  made  no 
remark,  for  this  was  a  standing  quarrel  be 
tween  them,  and  the  one  thing  upon  which  his 
mother  was  hard  as  adamant.  "Wunst"  a 
day  it  was  compulsory  that  he  should  wash 
his  face.  He  dried  himself  on  a  greasy  towel, 
damp  and  dirty  and  ragged,  that  left  his  face 
covered  with  shreds  of  lint. 

"I  wish  we  didn't  live  so  far  away,"  she 
said,  as  he  sat  down.  "I  try  to  do  the  best 
I  can.  You  know  that.  But  a  dollar  on  the 
rent  is  such  a  savin',  an*  we've  more  room  here. 
You  know  that." 

He  scarcely  followed  her.  He  had  heard  it 
all  before,  many  times.  The  range  of  her 


THE  APOSTATE  31 

thought  was  limited,  and  she  was  ever  harking 
back  to  the  hardship  worked  upon  them  by 
living  so  far  from  the  mills. 

"A  dollar  means  more  grub/'  he  remarked 
sententiously.  "I'd  sooner  do  the  walkin'  an' 
git  the  grub." 

He  ate  hurriedly,  half  chewing  the  bread 
and  washing  the  unmasticated  chunks  down 
with  coffee.  The  hot  and  muddy  liquid  went 
by  the  name  of  coffee.  Johnny  thought  it  was 
coffee  —  and  excellent  coffee.  That  was  one 
of  the  few  of  life's  illusions  that  remained  to 
him.  He  had  never  drunk  real  coffee  in  his 
life. 

In  addition  to  the  bread,  there  was  a  small 
piece  of  cold  pork.  His  mother  refilled  his 
cup  with  coffee.  As  he  was  finishing  the  bread, 
he  began  to  watch  if  more  was  forthcoming. 
She  intercepted  his  questioning  glance. 

"Now,  don't  be  hoggish,  Johnny,"  was  her 
comment.  "You've  had  your  share.  Your 
brothers  an'  sisters  are  smaller'n  you." 

He  did  not  answer  the  rebuke.  He  was  not 
much  of  a  talker.  Also,  he  ceased  his  hungry 


32  THE   APOSTATE 

glancing  for  more.  He  was  uncomplaining, 
with  a  patience  that  was  as  terrible  as  the 
school  in  which  it  had  been  learned.  He 
finished  his  coffee,  wiped  his  mouth  on  the 
back  of  his  hand,  and  started  to  rise. 

"Wait  a  second/'  she  said  hastily.  "I 
guess  the  loaf  kin  stand  you  another  slice  —  a 
thin  un." 

There  was  legerdemain  in  her  actions.  With 
all  the  seeming  of  cutting  a  slice  from  the  loaf 
for  him,  she  put  loaf  and  slice  back  in  the 
bread  box  and  conveyed  to  him  one  of  her  own 
two  slices.  She  believed  she  had  deceived 
him,  but  he  had  noted  her  sleight-of-hand. 
Nevertheless,  he  took  the  bread  shamelessly. 
He  had  a  philosophy  that  his  mother,  what  of 
her  chronic  sickliness,  was  not  much  of  an 
eater  anyway. 

She  saw  that  he  was  chewing  the  bread  dry, 
and  reached  over  and  emptied  her  coffee  cup 
into  his. 

"Don't  set  good  somehow  on  my  stomach 
'his  morning,"  she  explained. 

A  distant  whistle,  prolonged  and  shrieking, 


THE   APOSTATE  33 

brought  both  of  them  to  their  feet.  She 
glanced  at  the  tin  alarm-clock  on  the  shelf. 
The  hands  stood  at  half-past  five.  The  rest  of 
the  factory  world  was  just  arousing  from  sleep. 
She  drew  a  shawl  about  her  shoulders,  and  on 
her  head  put  a  dingy  hat,  shapeless  and  ancient. 

"We've  got  to  run,"  she  said,  turning  the 
wick  of  the  lamp  and  blowing  down  the  chim 
ney. 

They  groped  their  way  out  and  down  the 
stairs.  It  was  clear  and  cold,  and  Johnny 
shivered  at  the  first  contact  with  the  outside 
air.  The  stars  had  not  yet  begun  to  pale  in 
the  sky,  and  the  city  lay  in  blackness.  Both 
Johnny  and  his  mother  shuffled  their  feet  as 
they  walked.  There  was  no  ambition  in  the 
leg  muscles  to  swing  the  feet  clear  of  the  ground. 

After  fifteen  silent  minutes,  his  mother 
turned  off  to  the  right. 

"Don't  be  late,"  was  her  final  warning  from 
out  of  the  dark  that  was  swallowing  her  up. 

He  made  no  response,  steadily  keeping  on 
his  way.  In  the  factory  quarter,  doors  were 
opening  everywhere,  and  he  was  soon  one  of  a 

D 


34  THE    APOSTATE 

multitude  that  pressed  onward  through  the 
dark.  As  he  entered  the  factory  gate  the 
whistle  blew  again.  He  glanced  at  the  east. 
Across  a  ragged  sky-line  of  housetops  a  pale 
light  was  beginning  to  creep.  This  much  he 
saw  of  the  day  as  he  turned  his  back  upon  it 
and  joined  his  work  gang. 

He  took  his  place  in  one  of  many  long  rows 
of  machines.  Before  him,  above  a  bin  rilled 
with  small  bobbins,  were  large  bobbins  revolv 
ing  rapidly.  Upon  these  he  wound  the  jute- 
twine  of  the  small  bobbins.  The  work  was 
simple.  All  that  was  required  was  celerity. 
The  small  bobbins  were  emptied  so  rapidly, 
and  there  were  so  many  large  bobbins  that  did 
the  emptying,  that  there  were  no  idle  moments. 

He  worked  mechanically.  When  a  small 
bobbin  ran  out,  he  used  his  left  hand  for  a 
brake,  stopping  the  large  bobbin  and  at  the 
same  time,  with  thumb  and  forefinger,  catch 
ing  the  flying  end  of  twine.  Also,  at  the  same 
time,  with  his  right  hand,  he  caught  up  the 
loose  twine-end  of  a  small  bobbin.  These 
various  acts  with  both  hands  were  performed 


THE   APOSTATE  35 

simultaneously  and  swiftly.  Then  there  would 
come  a  flash  of  his  hands  as  he  looped  the 
weaver's  knot  and  released  the  bobbin.  There 
was  nothing  difficult  about  weaver's  knots. 
He  once  boasted  he  could  tie  them  in  his  sleep. 
And  for  that  matter,  he  sometimes  did,  toiling 
centuries  long  in  a  single  night  at  tying  an  end 
less  succession  of  weaver's  knots. 

Some  of  the  boys  shirked,  wasting  time  and 
machinery  by  not  replacing  the  small  bobbins 
when  they  ran  out.  And  there  was  an  over 
seer  to  prevent  this.  He  caught  Johnny's 
neighbor  at  the  trick,  and  boxed  his  ears. 

"Look  at  Johnny  there — why  ain't  you 
Hke  him?"  the  overseer  wrathfully  demanded. 

Johnny's  bobbins  were  running  full  blast, 
but  he  did  not  thrill  at  the  indirect  praise. 
There  had  been  a  time  .  .  .  but  that  was  long 
ago,  very  long  ago.  His  apathetic  face  was 
expressionless  as  he  listened  to  himself  being 
held  up  as  a  shining  example.  He  was  the 
perfect  worker.  He  knew  that.  He  had  been 
told  so,  often.  It  was  a  commonplace,  and 
besides  it  didn't  seem  to  mean  anything  to  him 


36  THE   APOSTATE 

any  more.  From  the  perfect  worker  he  had 
evolved  into  the  perfect  machine.  When  his 
work  went  wrong,  it  was  with  him  as  with  the 
machine,  due  to  faulty  material.  It  would 
have  been  as  possible  for  a  perfect  nail-die  to 
cut  imperfect  nails  as  for  him  to  make  a  mis 
take. 

And  small  wonder.  There  had  never  been 
a  time  when  he  had  not  been  in  intimate  re 
lationship  with  machines.  Machinery  had  al 
most  been  bred  into  him,  and  at  any  rate  he 
had  been  brought  up  on  it.  Twelve  years 
before,  there  had  been  a  small  flutter  of  excite 
ment  in  the  loom  room  of  this  very  mill. 
Johnny's  mother  had  fainted.  They  stretched 
her  out  on  the  floor  in  the  midst  of  the  shriek 
ing  machines.  A  couple  of  elderly  women 
were  called  from  their  looms.  The  foreman 
assisted.  And  in  a  few  minutes  there  was  one 
more  soul  in  the  loom  room  than  had  entered 
by  the  doors.  It  was  Johnny,  born  with  the 
pounding,  crashing  roar  of  the  looms  in  his 
ears,  drawing  with  his  first  breath  the  warm, 
moist  air  that  was  thick  with  flying  lint.  He 


THE   APOSTATE  37 

had  coughed  that  first  day  in  order  to  rid  his 
lungs  of  the  lint;  and  for  the  same  reason  he 
had  coughed  ever  since. 

The  boy  alongside  of  Johnny  whimpered  and 
sniffed.  The  boy's  face  was  convulsed  with 
hatred  for  the  overseer  who  kept  a  threaten 
ing  eye  on  him  from  a  distance;  but  every 
bobbin  was  running  full.  The  boy  yelled  ter 
rible  oaths  into  the  whirling  bobbins  before 
him;  but  the  sound  did  not  carry  half  a  dozen 
feet,  the  roaring  of  the  room  holding  it  in  and 
containing  it  like  a  wall. 

Of  all  this  Johnny  took  no  notice.  He  had 
a  way  of  accepting  things.  Besides,  things 
grow  monotonous  by  repetition,  and  this  par 
ticular  happening  he  had  witnessed  many 
times.  It  seemed  to  him  as  useless  to  oppose 
the  overseer  as  to  defy  the  will  of  a  machine. 
Machines  were  made  to  go  in  certain  ways  and 
to  perform  certain  tasks.  It  was  the  same  with 
the  overseer. 

But  at  eleven  o'clock  there  was  excitement 
in  the  room.  In  an  apparently  occult  way 
the  excitement  instantly  permeated  everywhere. 


38  THE   APOSTATE 

The  one-legged  boy  who  worked  on  the  other 
side  of  Johnny  bobbed  swiftly  across  the  floor 
to  a  bin  truck  that  stood  empty.  Into  this  he 
dived  out  of  sight,  crutch  and  all.  The  super 
intendent  of  the  mill  was  coming  along,  accom 
panied  by  a  young  man.  He  was  well  dressed 
and  wore  a  starched  shirt  —  a  gentleman,  in 
Johnny's  classification  of  men,  and  also,  "the 
Inspector." 

He  looked  sharply  at  the  boys  as  he  passed 
along.  Sometimes  he  stopped  and  asked  ques 
tions.  When  he  did  so,  he  was  compelled  to 
shout  at  the  top  of  his  lungs,  at  which  mo 
ments  his  face  was  ludicrously  contorted  with 
the  strain  of  making  himself  heard.  His 
quick  eye  noted  the  empty  machine  alongside 
of  Johnny's,  but  he  said  nothing.  Johnny  also 
caught  his  eye,  and  he  stopped  abruptly.  He 
caught  Johnny  by  the  arm  to  draw  him  back  a 
step  from  the  machine;  but  with  an  exclama 
tion  of  surprise  he  released  the  arm. 

"Pretty  skinny,"  the  superintendent  laughed 
anxiously. 

"Pipe  stems,"  was  the  answer.     "Look  at 


THE  APOSTATE  39 

those  legs.  The  boy's  got  the  rickets  —  in 
cipient,  but  he's  got  them.  If  epilepsy  doesn't 
get  him  in  the  end,  it  will  be  because  tuber 
culosis  gets  him  first." 

Johnny  listened,  but  did  not  understand. 
Furthermore  he  was  not  interested  in  future 
ills.  There  was  an  immediate  and  more  serious 
ill  that  threatened  him  in  the  form  of  the  in 
spector. 

"Now,  my  boy,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the 
truth,"  the  inspector  said,  or  shouted,  bending 
close  to  the  boy's  ear  to  make  him  hear.  "How 
old  are  you  ?" 

"Fourteen,"  Johnny  lied,  and  he  lied  with 
the  full  force  of  his  lungs.  So  loudly  did  he  lie 
that  it  started  him  off  in  a  dry,  hacking  cough 
that  lifted  the  lint  which  had  been  settling  in 
his  lungs  all  morning. 

"Looks  sixteen  at  least,"  said  the  superin 
tendent. 

"Or  sixty,"  snapped  the  inspector. 

"He's  always  looked  that  way." 

"How  long?"  asked  the  inspector,  quickly. 

"For  years.     Never  gets  a  bit  older." 


40  THE   APOSTATE 

"Or  younger,  I  dare  say.  I  suppose  he's 
worked  here  all  those  years?" 

"Off  and  on  —  but  that  was  before  the  new 
law  was  passed,"  the  superintendent  hastened 
to  add. 

"Machine  idle?"  the  inspector  asked,  point 
ing  at  the  unoccupied  machine  beside  Johnny's, 
in  which  the  part-filled  bobbins  were  flying  like 
mad. 

"Looks  that  way."  The  superintendent  mo 
tioned  the  overseer  to  him  and  shouted  in  his 
ear  and  pointed  at  the  machine.  "Machine's 
idle,"  he  reported  back  to  the  inspector. 

They  passed  on,  and  Johnny  returned  to  his 
work,  relieved  in  that  the  ill  had  been  averted. 
But  the  one-legged  boy  was  not  so  fortunate. 
The  sharp-eyed  inspector  haled  him  out  at 
arm's  length  from  the  bin  truck.  His  lips  were 
quivering,  and  his  face  had  all  the  expression 
of  one  upon  whom  was  fallen  profound  and 
irremediable  disaster.  The  overseer  looked 
astounded,  as  though  for  the  first  time  he  had 
laid  eyes  on  the  boy,  while  the  superintendent's 
face  expressed  shock  and  displeasure. 


THE   APOSTATE  41 

"I  know  him,"  the  inspector  said.  "He's 
twelve  years  old.  I've  had  him  discharged 
from  three  factories  inside  the  year.  This 
makes  the  fourth." 

He  turned  to  the  one-legged  boy.  "You 
promised  me,  word  and  honor,  that  you'd  go  to 
school." 

The  one-legged  boy  burst  into  tears.  "  Please, 
Mr.  Inspector,  two  babies  died  on  us,  and 
we're  awful  poor." 

"What  makes  you  cough  that  way?"  the 
inspector  demanded,  as  though  charging  him 
with  crime. 

And  as  in  denial  of  guilt,  the  one-legged  boy 
replied:  "It  ain't  nothin'.  I  jes'  caught  a  cold 
last  week,  Mr.  Inspector,  that's  all." 

In  the  end  the  one-legged  boy  went  out  of 
the  room  with  the  inspector,  the  latter  accom 
panied  by  the  anxious  and  protesting  superin 
tendent.  After  that  monotony  settled  down 
again.  The  long  morning  and  the  longer  after 
noon  wore  away  and  the  whistle  blew  for 
quitting  time.  Darkness  had  already  fallen 
when  Johnny  passed  out  through  the  factory 


42  THE   APOSTATE 

gate.  In  the  interval  the  sun  had  made  a 
golden  ladder  of  the  sky,  flooded  the  world 
with  its  gracious  warmth,  and  dropped  down 
and  disappeared  in  the  west  behind  a  ragged 
sky-line  of  housetops. 

Supper  was  the  family  meal  of  the  day  — 
the  one  meal  at  which  Johnny  encountered  his 
younger  brothers  and  sisters.  It  partook  of  the 
nature  of  an  encounter,  to  him,  for  he  was 
very  old,  while  they  were  distressingly  young. 
He  had  no  patience  with  their  excessive  and 
amazing  juvenility.  He  did  not  understand  it. 
His  own  childhood  was  too  far  behind  him. 
He  was  like  an  old  and  irritable  man,  annoyed 
by  the  turbulence  of  their  young  spirits  that 
was  to  him  arrant  silliness.  He  glowered 
silently  over  his  food,  finding  compensation  in 
the  thought  that  they  would  soon  have  to  go 
to  work.  That  would  take  the  edge  off  of 
them  and  make  them  sedate  and  dignified  — 
like  him.  Thus  it  was,  after  the  fashion  of 
the  human,  that  Johnny  made  of  himself  a 
yardstick  with  which  to  measure  the  universe. 

During  the  meal,   his   mother  explained  in 


THE   APOSTATE  43 

various  ways  and  with  infinite  repetition  that 
she  was  trying  to  do  the  best  she  could;  so 
that  it  was  with  relief,  the  scant  meal  ended, 
that  Johnny  shoved  back  his  chair  and  arose. 
He  debated  for  a  moment  between  bed  and  the 
front  door,  and  finally  went  out  the  latter. 
He  did  not  go  far.  He  sat  down  on  the  stoop, 
his  knees  drawn  up  and  his  narrow  shoulders 
drooping  forward,  his  elbows  on  his  knees 
and  the  palms  of  his  hands  supporting  his 
chin. 

As  he  sat  there,  he  did  no  thinking.  He  was 
just  resting.  So  far  as  his  mind  was  concerned, 
it  was  asleep.  His  brothers  and  sisters  came 
out,  and  with  other  children  played  noisily 
about  him.  An  electric  globe  on  the  corner 
lighted  their  frolics.  He  was  peevish  and 
irritable,  that  they  knew;  but  the  spirit  of  ad 
venture  lured  them  into  teasing  him.  They 
joined  hands  before  him,  and,  keeping  time 
with  their  bodies,  chanted  in  his  face  weird 
and  uncomplimentary  doggerel.  At  first  he 
snarled  curses  at  them  —  curses  he  had  learned 
from  the  lips  of  various  foremen.  Finding  this 


44  THE   APOSTATE 

futile,  and  remembering  his  dignity,  he  relapsed 
into  dogged  silence. 

His  brother  Will,  next  to  him  in  age,  having 
just  passed  his  tenth  birthday,  was  the  ring 
leader.  Johnny  did  not  possess  particularly 
kindly  feelings  toward  him.  His  life  had  early 
been  embittered  by  continual  giving  over  and 
giving  way  to  Will.  He  had  a  definite  feeling 
that  Will  was  greatly  in  his  debt  and  was  un 
grateful  about  it.  In  his  own  playtime,  far 
back  in  the  dim  past,  he  had  been  robbed  of  a 
large  part  of  that  playtime  by  being  compelled 
to  take  care  of  Will.  Will  was  a  baby  then, 
and  then,  as  now,  their  mother  had  spent 
her  days  in  the  mills.  To  Johnny  had  fallen 
fche  part  of  little  father  and  little  mother  as 
well. 

Will  seemed  to  show  the  benefit  of  the  giving 
over  and  the  giving  way.  He  was  well-built, 
fairly  rugged,  as  tall  as  his  elder  brother  and 
even  heavier.  It  was  as  though  the  life-blood 
of  the  one  had  been  diverted  into  the  other's 
veins.  And  in  spirits  it  was  the  same.  Johnny 
was  jaded,  worn  out,  without  resilience,  while 


THE   APOSTATE  45 

his  younger  brother  seemed  bursting  and  spill 
ing  over  with  exuberance. 

The  mocking  chant  rose  louder  and  louder. 
Will  leaned  closer  as  he  danced,  thrusting  out 
his  tongue.  Johnny's  left  arm  shot  out  and 
caught  the  other  around  the  neck.  At  the 
same  time  he  rapped  his  bony  fist  to  the  other's 
nose.  It  was  a  pathetically  bony  fist,  but  that 
it  was  sharp  to  hurt  was  evidenced  by  the  squeal 
of  pain  it  produced.  The  other  children  were 
uttering  frightened  cries,  while  Johnny's  sister, 
Jennie,  had  dashed  into  the  house. 

He  thrust  Will  from  him,  kicked  him  savagely 
on  the  shins,  then  reached  for  him  and  slammed 
him  face  downward  in  the  dirt.  Nor  did  he 
release  him  till  the  face  had  been  rubbed  into 
the  dirt  several  times.  Then  the  mother 
arrived,  an  anaemic  whirlwind  of  solicitude  and 
maternal  wrath. 

"Why  can't  he  leave  me  alone?"  was 
Johnny's  reply  to  her  upbraiding.  "Can't  he 
see  I'm  tired?" 

"I'm  as  big  as  you,"  Will  raged  in  her  arms, 
his  face  a  mess  of  tears,  dirt,  and  blood.  "I'm 


46  THE   APOSTATE 

as  big  as  you  now,  an'  I'm  goin'  to  git  bigger. 
Then  I'll  lick  you  —  see  if  I  don't." 

"You  ought  to  be  to  work,  seein'  how  big 
you  are,"  Johnny  snarled.     "That's  what's  the 
matter  with  you.     You  ought  to  be  to  work. 
An'  it's  up  to  your  ma  to  put  you  to  work." 

"But  he's  too  young,"  she  protested.  "He's 
only  a  little  boy." 

"I  was  younger'n  him  when  I  started  to 
work." 

Johnny's  mouth  was  open,  further  to  express 
the  sense  of  unfairness  that  he  felt,  but  the 
mouth  closed  with  a  snap.  He  turned  gloomily 
on  his  heel  and  stalked  into  the  house  and  to 
bed.  The  door  of  his  room  was  open  to  let  in 
warmth  from  the  kitchen.  As  he  undressed  in 
the  semi-darkness  he  could  hear  his  mother 
talking  with  a  neighbor  woman  who  had 
dropped  in.  His  mother  was  crying,  and  her 
speech  was  punctuated  with  spiritless  sniffles. 

"I  can't  make  out  what's  gittin'  into  Johnny," 
he  could  hear  her  say.  "He  didn't  used  to  be 
this  way.  He  was  a  patient  little  angel. 

"An'   he  is  a  good  boy,"   she  hastened  to 


THE   APOSTATE  47 

defend.  "He's  worked  faithful,  an'  he  did  go 
to  work  too  young.  But  it  wasn't  my  fault. 
I  do  the  best  I  can,  I'm  sure." 

Prolonged  sniffling  from  the  kitchen,  and 
Johnny  murmured  to  himself  as  his  eyelids 
closed  down,  "You  betcher  life  I've  worked 
faithful." 

The  next  morning  he  was  torn  bodily  by  his 
mother  from  the  grip  of  sleep.  Then  came 
the  meagre  breakfast,  the  tramp  through  the 
dark,  and  the  pale  glimpse  of  day  across  the 
housetops  as  he  turned  his  back  on  it  and 
went  in  through  the  factory  gate.  It  was  an 
other  day,  of  all  the  days,  and  all  the  days  were 
alike. 

And  yet  there  had  been  variety  in  his  life  — 
at  the  times  he  changed  from  one  job  to  an 
other,  or  was  taken  sick.  When  he  was  six,  he 
was  little  mother  and  father  to  Will  and  the 
other  children  still  younger.  At  seven  he  went 
into  the  mills  —  winding  bobbins.  When  he 
was  eight,  he  got  work  in  another  mill.  His 
new  job  was  marvellously  easy.  All  he  had  to 
do  was  to  sit  down  with  a  little  stick  in  his 


48  THE   APOSTATE 

hand  and  guide  a  stream  of  cloth  that  flowed 
past  him.  This  stream  of  cloth  came  out  of 
the  maw  of  a  machine,  passed  over  a  hot  roller, 
and  went  on  its  way  elsewhere.  But  he  sat 
always  in  the  one  place,  beyond  the  reach  of 
daylight,  a  gas-jet  flaring  over  him,  himself 
part  of  the  mechanism. 

He  was  very  happy  at  that  job,  in  spite  of 
the  moist  heat,  for  he  was  still  young  and  in 
possession  of  dreams  and  illusions.  And  won 
derful  dreams  he  dreamed  as  he  watched  the 
steaming  cloth  streaming  endlessly  by.  But 
there  was  no  exercise  about  the  work,  no  call 
upon  his  mind,  and  he  dreamed  less  and  less, 
while  his  mind  grew  torpid  and  drowsy.  Never 
theless,  he  earned  two  dollars  a  week,  and  two 
dollars  represented  the  difference  between  acute 
starvation  and  chronic  underfeeding. 

But  when  he  was  nine,  he  lost  his  job.  Measles 
was  the  cause  of  it.  After  he  recovered,  he  got 
work  in  a  glass  factory.  The  pay  was  better, 
and  the  work  demanded  skill.  It  was  piece 
work,  and  the  more  skilful  he  was,  the  bigger 
wages  he  earned.  Here  was  incentive.  And 


THE   APOSTATE  49 

under  this  incentive  he  developed  into  a  remark 
able  worker. 

It  was  simple  work,  the  tying  of  glass  stoppers 
into  small  bottles.  At  his  waist  he  carried  a 
bundle  of  twine.  He  held  the  bottles  between 
his  knees  so  that  he  might  work  with  both 
hands.  Thus,  in  a  sitting  position  and  bending 
over  his  own  knees,  his  narrow  shoulders  grew 
humped  and  his  chest  was  contracted  for  ten 
hours  each  day.  This  was  not  good  for  the 
lungs,  but  he  tied  three  hundred  dozen  bottles 
a  day. 

The  superintendent  was  very  proud  of  him, 
and  brought  visitors  to  look  at  him.  In  ten 
hours  three  hundred  dozen  bottles  passed 
through  his  hands.  This  meant  that  he  had 
attained  machine-like  perfection.  All  waste 
movements  were  eliminated.  Every  motion  of 
his  thin  arms,  every  movement  of  a  muscle  in 
the  thin  fingers,  was  swift  and  accurate.  He 
worked  at  high  tension,  and  the  result  was 
that  he  grew  nervous.  At  night  his  muscles 
twitched  in  his  sleep,  and  in  the  daytime  he 
could  not  relax  and  rest.  He  remained  keyed 


50  THE   APOSTATE 

up  and  his  muscles  continued  to  twitch.  Also 
he  grew  sallow  and  his  lint-cough  grew  worse. 
Then  pneumonia  laid  hold  of  the  feeble  lungs 
within  the  contracted  chest,  and  he  lost  his  job 
in  the  glass-works. 

Now  he  had  returned  to  the  jute  mills  where 
he  had  first  begun  with  winding  bobbins. 
But  promotion  was  waiting  for  him.  He  was 
a  good  worker.  He  would  next  go  on  the 
starcher,  and  later  he  would  go  into  the  loom 
room.  There  was  nothing  after  that  except 
increased  efficiency. 

The  machinery  ran  faster  than  when  he  had 
first  gone  to  work,  and  his  mind  ran  slower. 
He  no  longer  dreamed  at  all,  though  his  earlier 
years  had  been  full  of  dreaming.  Once  he 
had  been  in  love.  It  was  when  he  first  began 
guiding  the  cloth  over  the  hot  roller,  and  it  was 
with  the  daughter  of  the  superintendent.  She 
was  much  older  than  he,  a  young  woman,  and 
he  had  seen  her  at  a  distance  only  a  paltry 
half-dozen  times.  But  that  made  no  difference. 
On  the  surface  of  the  cloth  stream  that  poured 
past  him,  he  pictured  radiant  futures  wherein 


THE  APOSTATE  51 

he  performed  prodigies  of  toil,  invented  miracu 
lous  machines,  won  to  the  mastership  of  the 
mills,  and  in  the  end  took  her  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her  soberly  on  the  brow. 

But  that  was  all  in  the  long  ago,  before  he 
had  grown  too  old  and  tired  to  love.  Also,  she 
had  married  and  gone  away,  and  his  mind  had 
gone  to  sleep.  Yet  it  had  been  a  wonderful 
experience,  and  he  used  often  to  look  back 
upon  it  as  other  men  and  women  look  back 
upon  the  time  they  believed  in  fairies.  He  had 
never  believed  in  fairies  nor  Santa  Claus;  but 
he  had  believed  implicitly  in  the  smiling  future 
his  imagination  had  wrought  into  the  steaming 
cloth  stream. 

He  had  become  a  man  very  early  in  life.  At 
seven,  when  he  drew  his  first  wages,  began  his 
adolescence.  A  certain  feeling  of  independence 
crept  up  in  him,  and  the  relationship  between 
him  and  his  mother  changed.  Somehow,  as  an 
earner  and  breadwinner,  doing  his  own  work 
in  the  world,  he  was  more  like  an  equal  with 
her.  Manhood,  full-blown  manhood,  had 
come  when  he  was  eleven,  at  which  time  he 


52  THE   APOSTATE 

had  gone  to  work  on  the  night  shift  for  six 
months.  No  child  works  on  the  night  shift 
and  remains  a  child. 

There  had  been  several  great  events  in  his 
life.  One  of  these  had  been  when  his  mother 
bought  some  California  prunes.  Two  others 
had  been  the  two  times  when  she  cooked  custard. 
Those  had  been  events.  He  remembered  them 
kindly.  And  at  that  time  his  mother  had  told 
him  of  a  blissful  dish  she  would  sometime 
make  —  "floating  island,"  she  had  called  it, 
"better  than  custard."  For  years  he  had 
looked  forward  to  the  day  when  he  would  sit 
down  to  the  table  with  floating  island  before 
him,  until  at  last  he  had  relegated  the  idea  ot 
it  to  the  limbo  of  unattainable  ideals. 

Once  he  found  a  silver  quarter  lying  on  the 
sidewalk.  That,  also,  was  a  great  event  in  his 
life,  withal  a  tragic  one.  He  knew  his  duty  on 
the  instant  the  silver  flashed  on  his  eyes,  before 
even  he  had  picked  it  up.  At  home,  as  usual, 
there  was  not  enough  to  eat,  and  home  he 
should  have  taken  it  as  he  did  his  wages  every 
Saturday  night.  Right  conduct  in  this  case 


THE  APOSTATE  53 

•vas  obvious;  but  he  never  had  any  spending 
of  his  money,  and  he  was  suffering  from  candy 
hunger.  He  was  ravenous  for  the  sweets  that 
only  on  red-letter  days  he  had  ever  tasted  in  his 
life. 

He  did  not  attempt  to  deceive  himself.  He 
knew  it  was  sin,  and  deliberately  he  sinned 
when  he  went  on  a  fifteen-cent  candy  debauch. 
Ten  cents  he  saved  for  a  future  orgy;  but 
not  being  accustomed  to  the  carrying  of  money, 
he  lost  the  ten  cents.  This  occurred  at  the 
time  when  he  was  suffering  all  the  torments  of 
conscience,  and  it  was  to  him  an  act  of  divine 
retribution.  He  had  a  frightened  sense  of  the 
closeness  of  an  awful  and  wrathful  God.  God 
had  seen,  and  God  had  been  swift  to  punish, 
denying  him  even  the  full  wages  of  sin. 

In  memory  he  always  looked  back  upon  that 
event  as  the  one  great  criminal  deed  of  his  life, 
and  at  the  recollection  his  conscience  always 
awoke  and  gave  him  another  twinge.  It  was 
the  one  skeleton  in  his  closet.  Also,  being  so 
made  and  circumstanced,  he  looked  back  upon 
the  deed  with  regret.  He  was  dissatisfied  with 


54  THE   APOSTATE 

the  manner  in  which  he  had  spent  the  quarter. 
He  could  have  invested  it  better,  and,  out  of 
his  later  knowledge  of  the  quickness  of  God, 
he  would  have  beaten  God  out  by  spending  the 
whole  quarter  at  one  fell  swoop.  In  retrospect 
he  spent  the  quarter  a  thousand  times,  and 
each  time  to  better  advantage. 

There  was  one  other  memory  of  the  past> 
dim  and  faded,  but  stamped  into  his  soul  ever 
lasting  by  the  savage  feet  of  his  father.  It  was 
more  like  a  nightmare  than  a  remembered 
vision  of  a  concrete  thing  —  more  like  the  race- 
memory  of  man  that  makes  him  fall  in  his 
sleep  and  that  goes  back  to  his  arboreal  ancestry. 

This  particular  memory  never  came  to  Johnny 
in  broad  daylight  when  he  was  wide  awake.  It 
came  at  night,  in  bed,  at  the  moment  that  his 
consciousness  was  sinking  down  and  losing 
itself  in  sleep.  It  always  aroused  him  to 
frightened  wakefulness,  and  for  the  moment,  in 
the  first  sickening  start,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  lay  crosswise  on  the  foot  of  the  bed.  In  the 
bed  were  the  vague  forms  of  his  father  and 
mother.  He  never  saw  what  his  father  looked 


THE  APOSTATE  55 

like.  He  had  but  one  impression  of  his  father, 
and  that  was  that  he  had  savage  and  pitiless  feet. 
His  earlier  memories  lingered  with  him,  but 
he  had  no  late  memories.  All  days  were  alike. 
Yesterday  or  last  year  were  the  same  as  a  thou 
sand  years  —  or  a  minute.  Nothing  ever  hap 
pened.  There  were  no  events  to  mark  the 
march  of  time.  Time  did  not  march.  It 
stood  always  still.  It  was  only  the  whirling 
machines  that  moved,  and  they  moved  no 
where  —  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  moved 
faster. 

When  he  was  fourteen,  he  went  to  work  on 
the  starcher.  It  was  a  colossal  event.  Some 
thing  had  at  last  happened  that  could  be  re 
membered  beyond  a  night's  sleep  or  a  week's 
pay-day.  It  marked  an  era.  It  was  a  machine 
Olympiad,  a  thing  to  date  from.  "When  I 
went  to  work  on  the  starcher,"  or,  "after,"  or 
"before  I  went  to  work  on  the  starcher,"  were 
sentences  often  on  his  lips. 

He  celebrated  his  sixteenth  birthday  by  going 
into  the  loom  room  and  taking  a  loom.  Here 


56  THE  APOSTATE 

was  an  incentive  again,  for  it  was  piece-work. 
And  he  excelled,  because  the  clay  of  him  had 
been  moulded  by  the  mills  into  the  perfect  ma 
chine.  At  the  end  of  three  months  he  was 
running  two  looms,  and,  later,  three  and  four. 

At  the  end  of  his  second  year  at  the  looms 
he  was  turning  out  more  yards  than  any  other 
weaver,  and  more  than  twice  as  much  as  some 
of  the  less  skilful  ones.  And  at  home  things 
began  to  prosper  as  he  approached  the  full 
stature  of  his  earning  power.  Not,  however, 
that  his  increased  earnings  were  in  excess  of 
need.  The  children  were  growing  up.  They 
ate  more.  And  they  were  going  to  school,  and 
school-books  cost  money.  And  somehow,  the 
faster  he  worked,  the  faster  climbed  the  prices 
of  things.  Even  the  rent  went  up,  though  the 
house  had  fallen  from  bad  to  worse  disrepair. 

He  had  grown  taller;  but  with  his  increased 
height  he  seemed  leaner  than  ever.  Also,  he 
was  more  nervous.  With  the  nervousness  in 
creased  his  peevishness  and  irritability.  The 
children  had  learned  by  many  bitter  lessons  to 
fight  shy  of  him.  His  mother  respected  him 


THE   APOSTATE  57 

for  his  earning  power,  but  somehow   her    re 
spect  was  tinctured  with  fear. 

There  was  no  joyousness  in  life  for  him. 
The  procession  of  the  days  he  never  saw. 
The  nights  he  slept  away  in  twitching  uncon 
sciousness.  The  rest  of  the  time  he  worked, 
and  his  consciousness  was  machine  conscious 
ness.  Outside  this  his  mind  was  a  blank. 
He  had  no  ideals,  and  but  one  illusion;  namely, 
that  he  drank  excellent  coffee.  He  was  a 
work-beast.  He  had  no  mental  life  whatever; 
yet  deep  down  in  the  crypts  of  his  mind,  un 
known  to  him,  were  being  weighed  and  sifted 
every  hour  of  his  toil,  every  movement  of  his 
hands,  every  twitch  of  his  muscles,  and  prepara 
tions  were  making  for  a  future  course  of  action 
that  would  amaze  him  and  all  his  little  world. 

It  was  in  the  late  spring  that  he  came  home 
from  work  one  night  aware  of  unusual  tired 
ness.  There  was  a  keen  expectancy  in  the  air 
as  he  sat  down  to  the  table,  but  he  did  not 
notice.  He  went  through  the  meal  in  moody 
silence,  mechanically  eating  what  was  before 
him.  The  children  um'd  and  ah'd  and  made 


58  THE   APOSTATE 

smacking  noises  with  their  mouths.  But  he 
was  deaf  to  them. 

"D'ye  know  what  you're  eatin'  ?"  his  mother 
demanded  at  last,  desperately. 

He  looked  vacantly  at  the  dish  before  him, 
and  vacantly  at  her. 

"Floatin'  island,"  she  announced  trium 
phantly. 

"Oh,"  he  said. 

"Floating  island!"  the  children  chorussecl 
loudly. 

"Oh,"  he  said.  And  after  two  or  three 
mouthfuls,  he  added,  "I  guess  I  ain't  hungry 
to-night." 

He  dropped  the  spoon,  shoved  back  his 
chair,  and  arose  wearily  from  the  table. 

"An'  I  guess  I'll  go  to  bed." 

His  feet  dragged  more  heavily  than  usual  as 
he  crossed  the  kitchen  floor.  Undressing  was 
a  Titan's  task,  a  monstrous  futility,  and  he 
wept  weakly  as  he  crawled  into  bed,  one  shoe 
still  on.  He  was  aware  of  a  rising,  swelling 
something  inside  his  head  that  made  his  brain 
thick  and  fuzzy.  His  lean  fingers  felt  as  big  as 


THE  APOSTATE  59 

his  wrist,  while  in  the  ends  of  them  was  a  re 
moteness  of  sensation  vague  and  fuzzy  like  his 
brain.  The  small  of  his  back  ached  intolerably. 
All  his  bones  ached.  He  ached  everywhere. 
And  in  his  head  began  the  shrieking,  pounding, 
crashing,  roaring  of  a  million  looms.  All  space 
was  filled  with  flying  shuttles.  They  darted 
in  and  out,  intricately,  amongst  the  stars.  He 
worked  a  thousand  looms  himself,  and  ever 
they  speeded  up,  faster  and  faster,  and  his 
brain  unwound,  faster  and  faster,  and  be 
came  the  thread  that  fed  the  thousand  flying 
shuttles. 

He  did  not  go  to  work  next  morning.  He 
was  too  busy  weaving  colossally  on  the  thou 
sand  looms  that  ran  inside  his  head.  His 
mother  went  to  work,  but  first  she  sent  for  the 
doctor.  It  was  a  severe  attack  of  la  grippe,  he 
said.  Jennie  served  as  nurse  and  carried  out  his 
instructions. 

It  was  a  very  severe  attack,  and  it  was.  a 
week  before  Johnny  dressed  and  tottered 
feebly  across  the  floor.  Another  week,  the 
doctor  said,  and  he  would  be  fit  to  return  to 


60  THE   APOSTATE 

work.  The  foreman  of  the  loom  room  visited 
him  on  Sunday  afternoon,  the  first  day  of  his 
convalescence.  The  best  weaver  in  the  room, 
the  foreman  told  his  mother.  His  job  would  be 
held  for  him.  He  could  come  back  to  work  a 
week  from  Monday. 

"Why  don't  you  thank  'im,  Johnny?"  his 
mother  asked  anxiously. 

"He's  ben  that  sick  he  ain't  himself  yet," 
she  explained  apologetically  to  the  visitor. 

Johnny  sat  hunched  up  and  gazing  steadfastly 
at  the  floor.  He  sat  in  the  same  position  long 
after  the  foreman  had  gone.  It  was  warm  out 
doors,  and  he  sat  on  the  stoop  in  the  afternoon. 
Sometimes  his  lips  moved.  He  seemed  lost  in 
endless  calculations. 

Next  morning,  after  the  day  grew  warm,  he 
took  his  seat  on  the  stoop.  He  had  pencil  and 
paper  this  time  with  which  to  continue  his  cal 
culations,  and  he  calculated  painfully  and  amaz 
ingly. 

"What  comes  after  millions?"  he  asked  at 
noon,  when  Will  came  home  from  school.  "An* 
how  d'ye  work  'em?" 


THE   APOSTATE  61 

That  afternoon  finished  his  task.  Each  day, 
but  without  paper  and  pencil,  he  returned  to  the 
stoop.  He  was  greatly  absorbed  in  the  one  tree 
that  grew  across  the  street.  He  studied  it  for 
hours  at  a  time,  and  was  unusually  interested 
when  the  wind  swayed  its  branches  and  fluttered 
its  leaves.  Throughout  the  week  he  seemed 
lost  in  a  great  communion  with  himself.  On 
Sunday,  sitting  on  the  stoop,  he  laughed 
aloud,  several  times,  to  the  perturbation  of 
his  mother,  who  had  not  heard  him  laugh 
in  years. 

Next  morning,  in  the  early  darkness,  she  came 
to  his  bed  to  rouse  him.  He  had  had  his  fill  of 
sleep  all  week,  and  awoke  easily.  He  made  no 
struggle,  nor  did  he  attempt  to  hold  on  to  the 
bedding  when  she  stripped  it  from  him.  He  lay 
quietly,  and  spoke  quietly. 


ain't  no  use,  ma." 


"You'll  be  late,"  she  said,  under  the  impres 
sion  that  he  was  still  stupid  with  sleep. 

"I'm  awake,  ma,  an'  I  tell  you  it  ain't  no  use. 
You  might  as  well  lemme  alone.  I  ain't  goin1 
to  git  up." 


62  THE   APOSTATE 

"But  you'll  lose  your  job  !"  she  cried. 

"I  ain't  goin'  to  git  up,"  he  repeated  in  a 
strange,  passionless  voice. 

She  did  not  go  to  work  herself  that  morning. 
This  was  sickness  beyond  any  sickness  she  had 
ever  known.  Fever  and  delirium  she  could 
understand;  but  this  was  insanity.  She  pulled 
the  bedding  up  over  him  and  sent  Jennie  for 
the  doctor. 

When  that  person  arrived,  Johnny  was  sleep 
ing  gently,  and  gently  he  awoke  and  allowed  his 
pulse  to  be  taken. 

"Nothing  the  matter  with  him,"  the  doctor 
reported.  "Badly  debilitated,  that's  all.  Not 
much  meat  on  his  bones." 

"He's  always  been  that  way,"  his  mother 
volunteered. 

"Now  go   Vay,  ma,   an'  let  me  finish  my 


snooze." 


Johnny  spoke  sweetly  and  placidly,  and 
sweetly  and  placidly  he  rolled  over  on  his  side 
and  went  to  sleep. 

At  ten  o'clock  he  awoke  and  dressed  himself. 
He  walked  out  into  the  kitchen,  where  he 


THE  APOSTATE  63 

found  his  mother  with  a  frightened  expression 
on  her  face. 

"I'm  goin'  away,  ma,"  he  announced,  "an* 
I  jes'  want  to  say  good-by." 

She  threw  her  apron  over  her  head  and  sat 
down  suddenly  and  wept.  He  waited  patiently. 

"I  might  a-known  it,"  she  was  sobbing. 

"Where?"  she  finally  asked,  removing  the 
apron  from  her  head  and  gazing  up  at  him  with 
a  stricken  face  in  which  there  was  little  curiosity. 

"I  don't  know  —  anywhere." 

As  he  spoke,  the  tree  across  the  street  appeared 
with  dazzling  brightness  on  his  inner  vision. 
It  seemed  to  lurk  just  under  his  eyelids,  and 
he  could  see  it  whenever  he  wished. 

"An*  your  job  ?"  she  quavered. 

"I  ain't  never  goin'  to  work  again." 

"My  God,  Johnny!"  she  wailed,  "don't  say 
that!" 

What  he  had  said  was  blasphemy  to  her 
As  a  mother  who  hears  her  child  deny  God,  was 
Johnny's  mother  shocked  by  his  words. 

"What's  got  into  you,  anyway?"  she  de 
manded,  with  a  lame  attempt  at  imperativeness. 


64  THE   APOSTATE 

"Figures,"  he  answered.  "Jes'  figures.  I've 
ben  doin'  a  lot  of  figurin'  this  week,  an'  it's 
most  surprisin'." 

"I  don't  see  what  that's  got  to  do  with  it," 
she  sniffled. 

Johnny  smiled  patiently,  and  his  mother  was 
aware  of  a  distinct  shock  at  the  persistent  ab 
sence  of  his  peevishness  and  irritability. 

"I'll  show  you,"  he  said.  "I'm  plum'  tired 
out.  What  makes  me  tired  ?  Moves.  I've 
ben  movin'  ever  since  I  was  born.  I'm  tired 
of  movin',  an'  I  ain't  goin'  to  move  any  more. 
Remember  when  I  worked  in  the  glass-house  ? 
I  used  to  do  three  hundred  dozen  a  day.  Now 
I  reckon  I  made  about  ten  different  moves  to 
each  bottle.  That's  thirty-six  thousan'  moves 
a  day.  Ten  days,  three  hundred  an'  sixty 
thousan'  moves  a  day.  One  month,  one  mill 
ion  an'  eighty  thousan'  moves.  Chuck  out 
the  eighty  thousan'  — "  he  spoke  with  the 
complacent  beneficence  of  a  philanthropist  — 
"chuck  out  the  eighty  thousan',  that  leaves  a 
million  moves  a  month  —  twelve  million  moves 
a  year. 


THE   APOSTATE  65 

"At  the  looms  I'm  movin'  twic'st  as  much. 
That  makes  twenty-five  million  moves  a  year, 
an'  it  seems  to  me  I've  ben  a  movin'  that  way 
'most  a  million  years. 

"Now  this  week  I  ain't  moved  at  all.  I  ain't 
made  one  move  in  hours  an*  hours.  I  tell 
you  it  was  swell,  jes'  settin'  there,  hours  an* 
Lours,  an*  doin'  nothin'.  I  ain't  never  ben 
happy  before.  I  never  had  any  time.  I've 
ben  movin'  all  the  time.  That  ain't  no  way  to 
be  happy.  An'  I  ain't  goin'  to  do  it  any  more. 
I'm  jes'  goin'  to  set,  an'  set,  an*  rest,  an'  rest> 
and  then  rest  some  more." 

"But  what's  goin'  to  come  of  Will  an'  the 
children?"  she  asked  despairingly. 

"That's  it,  'Will  an'  the  children,'"  he 
repeated. 

But  there  was  no  bitterness  in  his  voice.  He 
had  long  known  his  mother's  ambition  for  the 
younger  boy,  but  the  thought  of  it  no  longer 
rankled.  Nothing  mattered  any  more.  Not 
even  that. 

"1  know,  ma,  what  you've  ben  plannin'  for 
Will  —  keepin'  him  in  school  to  make  a  book- 


66  THE   APOSTATE 

keeper  out  of  him.  But  it  ain't  no  use,  I've 
quit.  He's  got  to  go  to  work." 

"An'  after  I  have  brung  you  up  the  way  1 
have,"  she  wept,  starting  to  cover  her  head 
with  the  apron  and  changing  her  mind. 

"You  never  brung  me  up,"  he  answered 
with  sad  kindliness.  "I  brung  myself  up, 
ma,  an'  I  brung  up  Will.  He's  bigger'n  me,  an' 
heavier,  an'  taller.  When  I  was  a  kid,  I  reckon 
I  didn't  git  enough  to  eat.  When  he  come 
along  an'  was  a  kid,  I  was  workin'  an'  earnin' 
grub  for  him  too.  But  that's  done  with.  Will 
can  go  to  work,  same  as  me,  or  he  can  go  to 
hell,  I  don't  care  which.  I'm  tired.  I'm 
goin'  now.  Ain't  you  goin'  to  say  good- 
by?" 

She  made  no  reply.  The  apron  had  gone 
over  her  head  again,  and  she  was  crying.  He 
paused  a  moment  in  the  doorway. 

"I'm  sure  I  done  the  best  I  knew  how,"  she 
was  sobbing. 

He  passed  out  of  the  house  and  down  the 
street.  A  wan  delight  came  into  his  face  at 
the  sight  of  the  lone  tree.  "  Jes'  ain't  goin'  to 


THE  APOSTATE  67 

do  nothin',"  he  said  to  himself,  half  aloud,  in  a 
crooning  tone.  He  glanced  wistfully  up  at  the 
sky,  but  the  bright  sun  dazzled  and  blinded 
him. 

It  was  a  long  walk  he  took,  and  he  did  not 
walk  fast.  It  took  him  past  the  jute-mill. 
The  muffled  roar  of  the  loom  room  came  to  his 
ears,  and  he  smiled.  It  was  a  gentle,  placid 
smile.  He  hated  no  one,  not  even  the  pounding,, 
shrieking  machines.  There  was  no  bitterness 
in  him,  nothing  but  an  inordinate  hunger  fof 
rest. 

The  houses  and  factories  thinned  out  and  the 
open  spaces  increased  as  he  approached  the 
country.  At  last  the  city  was  behind  him,  and 
he  was  walking  down  a  leafy  lane  beside  the 
railroad  track.  He  did  not  walk  like  a  man. 
He  did  not  look  like  a  man.  He  was  a  travesty 
of  the  human.  It  was  a  twisted  and  stunted 
and  nameless  piece  of  life  that  shambled  like 
a  sickly  ape,  arms  loose-hanging,  stoop-shoul 
dered,  narrow-chested,  grotesque  and  terrible. 

He  passed  by  a  small  railroad  station  and 
lay  down  in  the  grass  under  a  tree.  All  after- 


68  THE  APOSTATE 

noon  he  lay  there.  Sometimes  he  dozed,  with 
muscles  that  twitched  in  his  sleep.  When 
awake,  he  lay  without  movement,  watching  the 
birds  or  looking  up  at  the  sky  through  the 
branches  of  the  tree  above  him.  Once  or 
twice  he  laughed  aloud,  but  without  relevance 
to  anything  he  had  seen  or  felt. 

After  twilight  had  gone,  in  the  first  darkness 
of  the  night,  a  freight  train  rumbled  into  the 
station.  When  the  engine  was  switching  cars 
on  to  the  side-track,  Johnny  crept  along  the  side 
of  the  train.  He  pulled  open  the  side-door  of 
an  empty  box-car  and  awkwardly  and  labo 
riously  climbed  in.  He  closed  the  door.  The 
engine  whistled.  Johnny  was  lying  down,  and 
in  the  darkness  he  smiled. 


A  WICKED  WOMAN 


A   WICKED   WOMAN 

IT  was  because  she  had  broken  with  Billy 
that  Loretta  had  come  visiting  to  Santa 
Clara.  Billy  could  not  understand.  His 
sister  had  reported  that  he  had  walked  the 
floor  and  cried  all  night.  Loretta  had  not 
slept  all  night  either,  while  she  had  wept  most 
of  the  night.  Daisy  knew  this,  because  it  was 
in  her  arms  that  the  weeping  had  been  done. 
And  Daisy's  husband,  Captain  Kitt,  knew,  too. 
The  tears  of  Loretta,  and  the  comforting  by 
Daisy,  had  lost  him  some  sleep. 

Now  Captain  Kitt  did  not  like  to  lose  sleep. 
Neither  did  he  want  Loretta  to  marry  Billy  — 
nor  anybody  else.  It  was  Captain  Kitt's  belief 
that  Daisy  needed  the  help  of  her  younger 
sister  in  the  household.  But  he  did  not  say 
this  aloud.  Instead,  he  always  insisted  that 
Loretta  was  too  young  to  think  of  marriage. 


72  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

So  it  was  Captain  Kitt's  idea  that  Loretta 
should  be  packed  off  on  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Heming 
way.  There  wouldn't  be  any  Billy  there. 

Before  Loretta  had  been  at  Santa  Clara  a 
week,  she  was  convinced  that  Captain  Kitt's 
idea  was  a  good  one.  In  the  first  place, 
though  Billy  wouldn't  believe  it,  she  did  not 
want  to  marry  Billy.  And  in  the  second  place, 
though  Captain  Kitt  wouldn't  believe  it,  she  did 
not  want  to  leave  Daisy.  By  the  time  Loretta 
had  been  at  Santa  Clara  two  weeks,  she  was  ab 
solutely  certain  that  she  did  not  want  to  marry 
Billy.  But  she  was  not  so  sure  about  not  want 
ing  to  leave  Daisy.  Not  that  she  loved  Daisy 
less,  but  that  she  —  had  doubts. 

The  day  of  Loretta's  arrival,  a  nebulous  plan 
began  shaping  itself  in  Mrs.  Hemingway's 
brain.  The  second  day  she  remarked  to  Jack 
Hemingway,  her  husband,  that  Loretta  was  so 
innocent  a  young  thing  that  were  it  not  for  her 
sweet  guilelessness  she  would  be  positively 
stupid.  In  proof  of  which,  Mrs.  Hemingway 
told  her  husband  several  things  that  made  him 
chuckle.  By  the  third  day  Mrs.  Hemingway's 


A   WICKED   WOMAN  73 

plan  had  taken  recognizable  form.  Then  it 
was  that  she  composed  a  letter.  On  the  en 
velope  she  wrote:  "Mr.  Edward  Bashford, 
Athenian  Club,  San  Francisco." 

"Dear  Ned,"  the  letter  began.  She  had  once 
been  violently  loved  by  him  for  three  weeks 
in  her  pre-marital  days.  But  she  had  cove 
nanted  herself  to  Jack  Hemingway,  who  had 
prior  claims,  and  her  heart  as  well ;  and  Ned 
Bashford  had  philosophically  not  broken  his 
heart  over  it.  He  merely  added  the  experience 
to  a  large  fund  of  similarly  collected  data  out  of 
which  he  manufactured  philosophy.  Artisti 
cally  and  temperamentally  he  was  a  Greek  — 
a  tired  Greek.  He  was  fond  of  quoting  from 
Nietzsche,  in  token  that  he,  too,  had  passed 
through  the  long  sickness  that  follows  upon  the 
ardent  search  for  truth;  that  he  too  had 
emerged,  too  experienced,  too  shrewd,  too  pro 
found,  ever  again  to  be  afflicted  by  the  madness 
of  youths  in  their  love  of  truth.  'To  wor 
ship  appearance/"  he  often  quoted;  "'to  be 
lieve  in  forms,  in  tones,  in  words,  in  the  whole 
Olympus  of  appearance!"  This  particular 


74  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

excerpt  he  always  concluded  with,  f< '  Those 
Greeks  were  superficial  —  out  of  profundity!' ' 

He  was  a  fairly  young  Greek,  jaded  and  worn. 
Women  were  faithless  and  unveracious,  he 
held  —  at  such  times  that  he  had  relapses  and 
descended  to  pessimism  from  his  wonted  high 
philosophical  calm.  He  did  not  believe  in  the 
truth  of  women;  but,  faithful  to  his  German 
master,  he  did  not  strip  from  them  the  airy 
gauzes  that  veiled  their  untruth.  He  was 
content  to  accept  them  as  appearances  and  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  He  was  superficial  — 
out  of  profundity. 

"Jack  says  to  be  sure  to  say  to  you,  'good 
swimming,""  Mrs.  Hemingway  wrote  in  her 
letter;  "and  also  'to  bring  your  fishing  duds 
along."  Mrs.  Hemingway  wrote  other  things 
in  the  letter.  She  told  him  that  at  last  she  was 
prepared  to  exhibit  to  him  an  absolutely  true, 
unsullied,  and  innocent  woman.  "A  more 
guileless,  immaculate  bud  of  womanhood  never 
blushed  on  the  planet,"  was  one  of  the  several 
ways  in  which  she  phrased  the  inducement. 
And  to  her  husband  she  said  triumphantly,  "If 


A  WICKED  WOMAN  75 

I  don't  marry  Ned  off  this  time  — "  leaving 
unstated  the  terrible  alternative  that  she  lacked 
either  vocabulary  to  express  or  imagination  to 
conceive. 

Contrary  to  all  her  forebodings,  Loretta 
found  that  she  was  not  unhappy  at  Santa  Clara. 
True,  Billy  wrote  to  her  every  day,  but  his 
letters  were  less  distressing  than  his  presence. 
Also,  the  ordeal  of  being  away  from  Daisy  was 
not  so  severe  as  she  had  expected.  For  the  first 
time  in  her  life  she  was  not  lost  in  eclipse  in  the 
blaze  of  Daisy's  brilliant  and  mature  person 
ality.  Under  such  favorable  circumstances  Lo 
retta  came  rapidly  to  the  front,  while  Mrs. 
Hemingway  modestly  and  shamelessly  retreated 
into  the  background. 

Loretta  began  to  discover  that  she  was  not  a 
pale  orb  shining  by  reflection.  Quite  uncon 
sciously  she  became  a  small  centre  of  things. 
When  she  was  at  the  piano,  there  was  some  one 
to  turn  the  pages  for  her  and  to  express  pref 
erences  for  certain  songs.  When  she  dropped 
her  handkerchief,  there  was  some  one  to  pick  it 
up.  And  there  was  some  one  to  accompany  her 


76  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

in  ramblings  and  flower  gatherings.  Also,  she 
learned  to  cast  flies  in  still  pools  and  below 
savage  riffles,  and  how  not  to  entangle  silk  lines 
and  gut-leaders  with  the  shrubbery. 

Jack  Hemingway  did  not  care  to  teach  begin 
ners,  and  fished  much  by  himself,  or  not  at  all, 
thus  giving  Ned  Bashford  ample  time  in  which 
to  consider  Loretta  as  an  appearance.  As  such, 
she  was  all  that  his  philosophy  demanded. 
Her  blue  eyes  had  the  direct  gaze  of  a  boy,  and 
out  of  his  profundity  he  delighted  in  them  and 
forbore  to  shudder  at  the  duplicity  his  philoso 
phy  bade  him  to  believe  lurked  in  their  depths. 
She  had  the  grace  of  a  slender  flower,  the  fragil 
ity  of  color  and  line  of  fine  china,  in  all  of  which 
he  pleasured  greatly,  without  thought  of  the 
Life  Force  palpitating  beneath  and  in  spite  of 
Bernard  Shaw  —  in  whom  he  believed. 

Loretta  bourgeoned.  She  swiftly  developed 
personality.  She  discovered  a  will  of  her  own 
and  wishes  of  her  own  that  were  not  everlast 
ingly  entwined  with  the  will  and  the  wishes  of 
Daisy.  She  was  petted  by  Jack  Hemingway, 
spoiled  by  Alice  Hemingway,  and  devotedly 


A  WICKED   WOMAN  77 

attended  by  Ned  Bashford.  They  encouraged 
her  whims  and  laughed  at  her  follies,  while  she 
developed  the  pretty  little  tyrannies  that  are 
latent  in  all  pretty  and  delicate  women.  Her 
environment  acted  as  a  soporific  upon  her  an 
cient  desire  always  to  live  with  Daisy.  This 
desire  no  longer  prodded  her  as  in  the  days  of 
her  companionship  with  Billy.  The  more  she 
saw  of  Billy,  the  more  certain  she  had  been  that 
she  could  not  live  away  from  Daisy.  The 
more  she  saw  of  Ned  Bashford,  the  more  she 
forgot  her  pressing  need  of  Daisy. 

Ned  Bashford  likewise  did  some  forgetting. 
He  confused  superficiality  with  profundity, 
and  entangled  appearance  with  reality  until 
he  accounted  them  one.  Loretta  was  different 
from  other  women.  There  was  no  masquerade 
about  her.  She  was  real.  He  said  as  much  to 
Mrs.  Hemingway,  and  more,  who  agreed  with 
him  and  at  the  same  time  caught  her  husband's 
eyelid  drooping  down  for  the  moment  in  an 
unmistakable  wink. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Loretta  received  a 
letter  from  Billy  that  was  somewhat  different 


78  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

from  his  others.  In  the  main,  like  all  his  letters,, 
it  was  pathological.  It  was  a  long  recital  of 
symptoms  and  sufferings,  his  nervousness,  his 
sleeplessness,  and  the  state  of  his  heart.  Then, 
followed  reproaches,  such  as  he  had  never 
made  before.  They  were  sharp  enough  to> 
make  her  weep,  and  true  enough  to  put  tragedy 
into  her  face.  This  tragedy  she  carried  dowrc 
to  the  breakfast  table.  It  made  Jack  and  Mrs.. 
Hemingway  speculative,  and  it  worried  Ned.. 
They  glanced  to  him  for  explanation,  but  he 
shook  his  head. 

"I'll  find  out  to-night,"  Mrs.  Hemingway 
said  to  her  husband. 

But  Ned  caught  Loretta  in  the  afternoon  in 
the  big  living-room.  She  tried  to  turn  away. 
He  caught  her  hands,  and  she  faced  him  with: 
wet  lashes  and  trembling  lips.  He  looked  at 
her,  silently  and  kindly.  The  lashes  grew 
wetter. 

"There,  there,  don't  cry,  little  one,"  he  said 
soothingly. 

He  put  his  arm  protectingly  around  her 
shoulder.  And  to  his  shoulder,  like  a  tired 


A  WICKED  WOMAN  79 

child,  she  turned  her  face.  He  thrilled  in  ways 
unusual  for  a  Greek  who  has  recovered  from 
the  long  sickness. 

"Oh,  Ned,"  she  sobbed  on  his  shoulder,  "if 
you  only  knew  how  wicked  I  am!" 

He  smiled  indulgently,  and  breathed  in  a 
great  breath  freighted  with  the  fragrance  of  her 
hair.  He  thought  of  his  world-experience  of 
women,  and  drew  another  long  breath.  There 
seemed  to  emanate  from  her  the  perfect  sweet 
ness  of  a  child  —  "the  aura  of  a  white  soul," 
was  the  way  he  phrased  it  to  himself. 

Then  he  noticed  that  her  sobs  were  in 
creasing. 

"What's  the  matter,  little  one?"  he  asked 
pettingly  and  almost  paternally.  "Has  Jack 
been  bullying  you  ?  Or  has  your  dearly  be 
loved  sister  failed  to  write  ? " 

She  did  not  answer,  and  he  felt  that  he 
really  must  kiss  her  hair,  that  he  could  not  be 
responsible  if  the  situation  continued  much 
longer. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said  gently,  "and  we'll  see 
what  I  can  do." 


80  A  WICKED   WOMAN 

"  I  can't.  You  will  despise  me.  —  Oh,  Ned, 
I  am  so  ashamed !" 

He  laughed  incredulously,  and  lightly  touched 
her  hair  with  his  lips  —  so  lightly  that  she  did 
not  know. 

"Dear  little  one,  let  us  forget  all  about  it, 
whatever  it  is.  I  want  to  tell  you  how  I 
love  —  " 

She  uttered  a  sharp  cry  that  was  all  delight, 
and  then  moaned  — 

"Too  late!" 

"Too  late?"    he  echoed  in  surprise. 

"Oh,  why  did  I?  Why  did  I?"  she  was 
moaning. 

He  was  aware  of  a  swift  chill  at  his  heart. 

"What?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I  ...  he  ...  Billy. 

"I  am  such  a  wicked  woman,  Ned.  I 
know  you  will  never  speak  to  me  again." 

"This  — er  — this  Billy,"  he  began  halt 
ingly.  "  He  is  your  brother  ? " 

"No  ...  he  ...  I  didn't  know.  I  was  so 
young.  I  could  not  help  it.  Oh,  I  shall  go 
mad!  I  shall  go  mad!" 


A   WICKED  WOMAN  81 

It  was  then  that  Loretta  felt  his  shoulder  and 
the  encircling  arm  become  limp.  He  drew  away 
from  her  gently,  and  gently  he  deposited  her  in 
a  big  chair,  where  she  buried  her  face  and 
sobbed  afresh.  He  twisted  his  mustache  fiercely, 
then  drew  up  another  chair  and  sat  down. 

"I  —  I  do  not  understand,"  he  said. 

"I  am  so  unhappy,"  she  wailed. 

"Why  unhappy?" 

"Because  ...  he  ...  he  wants  me  to 
marry  him." 

His  face  cleared  on  the  instant,  and  he  placed 
a  hand  soothingly  on  hers. 

"That  should  not  make  any  girl  unhappy," 
he  remarked  sagely.  "Because  you  don't  love 
him  is  no  reason  —  of  course,  you  don't  love 
him?" 

Loretta  shook  her  head  and  shoulders  in  a 
vigorous  negative. 

"What?" 

Bashford  wanted  to  make  sure. 

"No,"  she  asserted  explosively.  "I  don't 
love  Billy!  I  don't  want  to  love  Billy!" 

"Because  you  don't  love  him,"  Bashford 
G 


82  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

resumed  with  confidence,  "is  no  reason  that 
you  should  be  unhappy  just  because  he  has 
proposed  to  you." 

She  sobbed  again,  and  from  the  midst  of  her 
sobs  she  cried:  — 

"That's  the  trouble.  I  wish  I  did  love  him. 
Oh,  I  wish  I  were  dead!" 

"Now,  my  dear  child,  you  are  worrying  your 
self  over  trifles."  His  other  hand  crossed  over 
after  its  mate  and  rested  on  hers.  "Women  do 
it  every  day.  Because  you  have  changed  your 
mind  or  did  not  know  your  mind,  because  you 
have  —  to  use  an  unnecessarily  harsh  word  — 
jilted  a  man  — " 

"Jilted!"  She  had  raised  her  head  and  was 
looking  at  him  with  tear-dimmed  eyes.  "Oh, 
Ned,  if  that  were  all!" 

"All?"  he  asked  in  a  hollow  voice,  while 
his  hands  slowly  retreated  from  hers.  He  was 
about  to  speak  further,  then  remained  silent. 

"But  I  don't  want  to  marry  him,"  Loretta 
broke  forth  protestingly. 

"Then  I  shouldn't,"  he  counselled. 

"  But  I  ought  to  marry  him." 


A  WICKED  WOMAN  83 

"Ought  to  marry  him  ?" 

She  nodded. 

"That  is  a  strong  word." 

"I  know  it  is,"  she  acquiesced,  while  she 
strove  to  control  her  trembling  lips.  Then  she 
spoke  more  calmly.  "I  am  a  wicked  woman, 
a  terribly  wicked  woman.  No  one  knows  how 
wicked  I  am  —  except  Billy." 

There  was  a  pause.  Ned  Bashford's  face 
was  grave,  and  he  looked  queerly  at  Loretta. 

"He  — Billy  knows?"    he  asked  finally. 

A  reluctant  nod  and  flaming  cheeks  was  the 
reply. 

He  debated  with  himself  for  a  while,  seem 
ing,  like  a  diver,  to  be  preparing  himself  for  the 
plunge. 

"Tell  me  about  it."  He  spoke  very  firmly. 
"You  must  tell  me  all  of  it." 

"And  will  you  —  ever  —  forgive  me?"  she 
asked  in  a  faint,  small  voice. 

He  hesitated,  drew  a  long  breath,  and  made 
the  plunge. 

"Yes,"  he  said  desperately.  "I'll  forgive 
you.  Go  ahead." 


84  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

"There  was  no  one  to  tell  me,"  she  began. 
"We  were  with  each  other  so  much.  I  did  not 
know  anything  of  the  world  —  then." 

She  paused  to  meditate.  Bashford  was  bit 
ing  his  lip  impatiently. 

"If  I  had  only  known—" 

She  paused  again. 

"Yes,  go  on,"  he  urged. 

"We  were  together  almost  every  evening." 

"Billy?"  he  demanded,  with  a  savageness 
that  startled  her. 

"Yes,  of  course,  Billy.  We  were  with  each 
other  so  much.  .  .  .  If  I  had  only  known.  .  .  . 
There  was  no  one  to  tell  me.  ...  I  was  so 
young  — " 

Her  lips  parted  as  though  to  speak  further, 
and  she  regarded  him  anxiously. 

"The  scoundrel!" 

With  the  explosion  Ned  Bashford  was  on  his 
feet,  no  longer  a  tired  Greek,  but  a  violently 
angry  young  man. 

"Billy  is  not  a  scoundrel;  he  is  a  good 
man,"  Loretta  defended,  with  a  firmness  that 
surprised  Bashford. 


A  WICKED  WOMAN  85 

"I  suppose  you'll  be  telling  me  next  that  it 
was  all  your  fault,"  he  said  sarcastically. 

She  nodded. 

"What?"  he  shouted. 

"It  was  all  my  fault,"  she  said  steadily.  "I 
should  never  have  let  him.  I  was  to  blame." 

Bashford  ceased  from  his  pacing  up  and 
down,  and  when  he  spoke,  his  voice  was  re 
signed. 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "I  don't  blame  you  in 
the  least,  Loretta.  And  you  have  been  very 
honest.  But  Billy  is  right,  and  you  are  wrong. 
You  must  get  married." 

"To  Billy?"  she  asked,  in  a  dim,  far-away 
voice. 

"Yes,  to  Billy.  I'll  see  to  it.  Where  does  he 
live  ?  I'll  make  him." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  marry  Billy  !"  she  cried 
out  in  alarm.  "Oh,  Ned,  you  won't  do  that  ?" 

"I  shall,"  he  answered  sternly.  "You  must. 
And  Billy  must.  Do  you  understand?" 

Loretta  buried  her  face  in  the  cushioned 
chair  back,  and  broke  into  a  passionate  storm 
of  sobs. 


86  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

All  that  Bashford  could  make  out  at  first,  as 
he  listened,  was:  "But  I  don't  want  to  leave 
Daisy!  I  don't  want  to  leave  Daisy!" 

He  paced  grimly  back  and  forth,  then  stopped 
curiously  to  listen. 

"  How  was  I  to  know  ?  —  Boo-hoo,"  Loretta 
was  crying.  "He  didn't  tell  me.  Nobody  else 
ever  kissed  me.  I  never  dreamed  a  kiss  could 
be  so  terrible  .  .  .  until,  boo-hoo  .  .  .  until 
he  wrote  to  me.  I  only  got  the  letter  this 
morning." 

His  face  brightened.  It  seemed  as  though 
light  was  dawning  on  him. 

"Is  that  what  you're  crying  about?" 

"N-no." 

His  heart  sank. 

"Then  what  are  you  crying  about?"  he 
asked  in  a  hopeless  voice. 

"Because  you  said  I  had  to  marry  Billy. 
And  I  don't  want  to  marry  Billy.  I  don't 
want  to  leave  Daisy.  I  don't  know  what  I 
want,  i  wish  I  were  dead." 

He  nerved  himself  for  another  effort. 

"Now  look  here,  Loretta,  be  sensible.     What 


A  WICKED  WOMAN  87 

is  this  about  kisses  ?  You  haven't  told  me 
everything." 

"I  —  I  don't  want  to  tell  you  everything." 

She  looked  at  him  beseechingly  in  the  silence 
that  fell. 

"Must  I  ?"   she  quavered  finally. 

"You  must,"  he  said  imperatively.  "You 
must  tell  me  everything." 

"Well,  then  .  .  .  must  I?" 

"You  must." 

"He  ...  I  ...  we  ..."  she  began  floun- 
deringly.  Then  blurted  out,  "  I  let  him,  and 
he  kissed  me." 

"Go  on,"  Bashford  commanded  desperately. 

"That's  all,"  she  answered. 

"All?"  There  was  a  vast  incredulity  in  his 
voice. 

"All?"  In  her  voice  was  an  interrogation 
no  less  vast. 

"  I  mean  —  er  —  nothing  worse  ?"  He  was 
overwhelmingly  aware  of  his  own  awkward 
ness. 

"Worse?"  She  was  frankly  puzzled.  "As 
though  there  could  be !  Billy  said  — " 


88  A  WICKED  WOMAN 

"When  did  he  say  it  ?"  Bashford  demanded 
abruptly. 

"In  his  letter  I  got  this  morning.  Billy  said 
that  my  .  .  .  our  .  .  .  our  kisses  were  terrible 
if  we  didn't  get  married." 

Bashford's  head  was  swimming. 

"What  else  did  Billy  say?"   he  asked. 

"He  said  that  when  a  woman  allowed  a  man 
to  kiss  her,  she  always  married  him  —  that  it 
was  terrible  if  she  didn't.  It  was  the  custom, 
he  said;  and  I  say  it  is  a  bad,  wicked  custom, 
and  I  don't  like  it.  I  know  I'm  terrible,"  she 
added  defiantly,  "but  I  can't  help  it." 

Bashford  absent-mindedly  brought  out  a 
cigarette. 

"Do  you  mind  if  I  smoke  ?"  he  asked,  as  he 
struck  a  match. 

Then  he  came  to  himself. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  cried,  flinging  away 
match  and  cigarette.  "  I  don't  want  to  smoke. 
1  didn't  meant  that  at  all.  What  I  mean  is  — " 

He  bent  over  Loretta,  caught  her  hands  in 
his,  then  sat  on  the  arm  of  the  chair  and  softly 
put  one  arm  around  her. 


A  WICKED   WOMAN  89 

"Loretta,  I  am  a  fool.  I  mean  it.  And  I 
mean  something  more.  I  want  you  to  be  my 
wife." 

He  waited  anxiously  in  the  pause  that  fol 
lowed. 

"You  might  answer  me,"  he  urged. 

"I  will  .  .  .  if  —  " 

"Yes,  goon.     If  what?" 

"If  I  don't  have  to  marry  Billy." 

"You  can't  marry  both  of  us,"  he  almost 
shouted. 

"And  it  isn't  the  custom  .  .  .  what  .  .  . 
what  Billy  said'" 

"No,  it  isn't  the  custom.  Now,  Loretta,  will 
you  marry  me  ? " 

"Don't  be  angry  with  me,"  she  pouted 
demurely. 

He  gathered  her  into  his  arms  and  kissed  her. 

"I  wish  it  were  the  custom,"  she  said  in  a 
faint  voice,  from  the  midst  of  the  embrace, 
"because  then  I'd  have  to  marry  you,  Ned  .  .  . 
dear  .  .  wouldn't  I?" 


"JUST  MEAT" 


"JUST  MEAT' 

HE  strolled  to  the  corner  and  glanced  up 
and  down  the  intersecting  street,  but 
saw  nothing  save  the  oases  of  light 
shed  by  the  street  lamps  at  the  successive 
crossings.  Then  he  strolled  back  the  way  he 
had  come.  He  was  a  shadow  of  a  man, 
sliding  noiselessly  and  without  undue  move 
ment  through  the  semi-darkness.  Also  he  was 
very  alert,  like  a  wild  animal  in  the  jungle, 
keenly  perceptive  and  receptive.  The  move 
ment  of  another  in  the  darkness  about  him 
would  need  to  have  been  more  shadowy  than 
he  to  have  escaped  him. 

In  addition  to  the  running  advertisement  of 
the  state  of  affairs  carried  to  him  by  his  senses, 
he  had  a  subtler  perception,  a  feel,  of  the 
atmosphere  around  him.  He  knew  that  the 
house  in  front  of  which  he  paused  for  a 


94  "JUST  MEAT" 

moment,  contained  children.  Yet  by  no  willed 
effort  of  perception  did  he  have  this  knowledge. 
For  that  matter,  he  was  not  even  aware  that  he 
knew,  so  occult  was  the  impression.  Yet,  did 
a  moment  arise  in  which  action,  in  relation  to 
that  house,  were  imperative,  he  would  have 
acted  on  the  assumption  that  it  contained 
children.  He  was  not  aware  of  all  that  he 
knew  about  the  neighborhood. 

In  the  same  way,  he  knew  not  how,  he  knew 
that  no  danger  threatened  in  the  footfalls  that 
came  up  the  cross  street.  Before  he  saw  the 
walker,  he  knew  him  for  a  belated  pedestrian 
hurrying  home.  The  walker  came  into  view 
at  the  crossing  and  disappeared  on  up  the 
street.  The  man  that  watched,  noted  a  light 
that  flared  up  in  the  window  of  a  house  on  the 
corner,  and  as  it  died  down  he  knew  it  for  an 
expiring  match.  This  was  conscious  identifica 
tion  of  familiar  phenomena,  and  through  his 
mind  flitted  the  thought,  "Wanted  to  know 
what  time."  In  another  house  one  room  was 
lighted.  The  light  burned  dimly  and  steadily, 
and  he  had  the  feel  that  it  was  a  sick-room. 


"JUST  MEAT"  95 

He  was  especially  interested  in  a  house  across 
the  street  in  the  middle  of  the  block.  To  this 
house  he  paid  most  attention.  No  matter  what 
way  he  looked,  nor  what  way  he  walked,  his 
looks  and  his  steps  always  returned  to  it.  Ex 
cept  for  an  open  window  above  the  porch, 
there  was  nothing  unusual  about  the  house. 
Nothing  came  in  nor  out.  Nothing  happened. 
There  were  no  lighted  windows,  nor  had  lights 
appeared  and  disappeared  in  any  of  the  win 
dows.  Yet  it  was  the  central  point  of  his  con 
sideration.  He  rallied  to  it  each  time  after  a 
divination  of  the  state  of  the  neighborhood. 

Despite  his  feel  of  things,  he  was  not  confi 
dent.  He  was  supremely  conscious  of  the  pre- 
cariousness  of  his  situation.  Though  unper 
turbed  by  the  footfalls  of  the  chance  pedestrian, 
he  was  as  keyed  up  and  sensitive  and  ready  to 
be  startled  as  any  timorous  deer.  He  was 
aware  of  the  possibility  of  other  intelligences 
prowling  about  in  the  darkness  —  intelligences 
similar  to  his  own  in  movement,  perception, 
and  divination. 

Far  down  the  street  he  caught  a  glimpse  of 


96  "JUST   MEAT" 

something  that  moved.  And  he  knew  it  was 
no  late  home-goer,  but  menace  and  danger. 
He  whistled  twice  to  the  house  across  the 
street,  then  faded  away  shadow-like  to  the  corner 
and  around  the  corner.  Here  he  paused  and 
looked  about  him  carefully.  Reassured,  he 
peered  back  around  the  corner  and  studied  the 
object  that  moved  and  that  was  coming  nearer. 
He  had  divined  aright.  It  was  a  policeman. 

The  man  went  down  the  cross  street  to  the 
next  corner,  from  the  shelter  of  which  he 
watched  the  corner  he  had  just  left.  He  saw 
the  policeman  pass  by,  going  straight  on  up 
the  street.  He  paralleled  the  policeman's  course, 
and  from  the  next  corner  again  watched  him  go 
by;  then  he  returned  the  way  he  had  come. 
He  whistled  once  to  the  house  across  the  street, 
and  after  a  time  whistled  once  again.  There 
was  reassurance  in  the  whistle,  just  as  there  had 
been  warning  in  the  previous  double  whistle. 

He  saw  a  dark  bulk  outline  itself  on  the  roof 
of  the  porch  and  slowly  descend  a  pillar.  Then 
it  came  down  the  steps,  passed  through  the 
small  iron  sate,  and  went  dawn  the  sidewalk. 


"JUST   MEAT"  97 

taking  on  the  form  of  a  man.  He  that  watched 
kept  on  his  own  side  the  street  and  moved  on 
abreast  to  the  corner,  where  he  crossed  over 
and  joined  the  other.  He  was  quite  small 
alongside  the  man  he  accosted. 

"How'd  you  make  out,  Matt?"    he  asked. 

The  other  grunted  indistinctly,  and  walked 
on  in  silence  a  few  steps. 

"I  reckon  I  landed  the  goods,"  he  said. 

Jim  chuckled  in  the  darkness,  and  waited 
for  further  information.  The  blocks  passed 
by  under  their  feet,  and  he  grew  impatient. 

"Well,  how  about  them  goods?"  he  asked. 
"What  kind  of  a  haul  did  you  make,  anyway  ?" 

"I  was  too  busy  to  rigger  it  out,  but  it's  fat. 
I  can  tell  you  that  much,  Jim,  it's  fat.  I  don't 
dast  to  think  how  fat  it  is.  Wait  till  we  get  to 
the  room." 

Jim  looked  at  him  keenly  under  the  street 
lamp  of  the  next  crossing,  and  saw  that  his  face 
was  a  trifle  grim  and  that  he  carried  his  left 
arm  peculiarly. 

"What's  the  matter  with  your  arm?"  he 
demanded. 


98  "JUST   MEAT" 

"The  little  cuss  bit  me.  Hope  I  don't  get 
hydrophoby.  Folks  gets  hydrophoby  from  man- 
bite  sometimes,  don't  they?" 

"  Gave  you  a  fight,  eh  ? "  Jim  asked  encourag 
ingly. 

The  other  grunted. 

"You're  harder'n  hell  to  get  information 
from,"  Jim  burst  out  irritably.  "Tell  us 
about  it.  You  ain't  goin'  to  lose  money  just 
a-tellin'  a  guy." 

"I  guess  I  choked  him  some,"  came  the 
answer.  Then,  by  way  of  explanation,  "He 
woke  up  on  me." 

"You  did  it  neat.     I  never  heard  a  sound." 

:'Jim,"  the  other  said  with  seriousness,  "it's 
a  hangin'  matter.  I  fixed  'm.  I  had  to.  He 
woke  up  on  me.  You  an'  me's  got  to  do  some 
layin'  low  for  a  spell." 

Jim  gave  a  low  whistle  of  comprehension. 

"Did  you  hear  me  whistle?"  he  asked 
suddenly. 

"Sure.     I  was  all  done.     I  was  just  comin' 


out." 


It  was  a  bull.     But  he  wasn't  on  a  little 


"JUST  MEAT"  99 

bit.  Went  right  by  an'  kept  a-paddin'  the  hoof 
out  a  sight.  Then  I  come  back  an'  gave  you 
the  whistle.  What  made  you  take  so  long  after 
that?" 

"I  was  waitin'  to  make  sure,"  Matt  explained. 
"I  was  mighty  glad  when  I  heard  you  whistle 
again.  It's  hard  work  waitin'.  I  just  sat 
there  an'  thought  an'  thought  .  .  .  oh,  all  kinds 
of  things.  It's  remarkable  what  a  fellow'll 
think  about.  And  then  there  was  a  darn  cat 
that  kept  movin'  around  the  house  an'  botherin* 
me  with  its  noises." 

"An'  it's  fat!"  Jim  exclaimed  irrelevantly 
and  with  joy. 

"I'm  sure  tellin'  you,  Jim,  it's  fat.  I'm 
plum'  anxious  for  another  look  at  'em." 

Unconsciously  the  two  men  quickened  their 
pace.  Yet  they  did  not  relax  from  their  caution. 
Twice  they  changed  their  course  in  order  to 
avoid  policemen,  and  they  made  very  sure  that 
they  were  not  observed  when  they  dived  into 
the  dark  hallway  of  a  cheap  rooming  house  down 
town. 

Not  until  they  had  gained  their  own  room  on 


ioo  "JUST  MEAT" 

the  top  floor,  did  they  scratch  a  match.  While 
Jim  lighted  a  lamp,  Matt  locked  the  door  and 
threw  the  bolts  into  place.  As  he  turned,  he 
noticed  that  his  partner  was  waiting  expectantly. 
Matt  smiled  to  himself  at  the  other's  eagerness. 
"Them  search-lights  is  all  right,"  he  said, 
drawing  forth  a  small  pocket  electric  lamp  and 
examining  it.  "  But  we  got  to  get  a  new  battery. 
It's  runnin'  pretty  weak.  I  thought  once  or 
twice  it'd  leave  me  in  the  dark.  Funny  ar 
rangements  in  that  house.  I  near  got  lost. 
His  room  was  on  the  left,  an'  that  fooled  me 


some." 


"I  told  you  it  was  on  the  left,"  Jim  inter 
rupted. 

"You  told  me  it  was  on  the  right,"  Matt 
went  on.  "I  guess  I  know  what  you  told  me, 
an'  there's  the  map  you  drew." 

Fumbling  in  his  vest  pocket,  he  drew  out  a 
folded  slip  of  paper.  As  he  unfolded  it,  Jim 
bent  over  and  looked. 

"I  did  make  a  mistake,"  he  confessed. 

"You  sure  did.  It  got  me  guessin'  some  for 
a  while." 


"JUST  MEAT"  101 

"  But  it  don't  matter  now,"  Jim  cried.  "  Let's 
see  what  you  got." 

"  It  does  matter,"  Matt  retorted.  "  It  matters 
a  lot  ...  to  me.  I've  got  to  run  all  the  risk. 
I  put  my  head  in  the  trap  while  you  stay  on 
the  street.  You  got  to  get  on  to  yourself  an'  be 
more  careful.  All  right,  I'll  show  you." 

He  dipped  loosely  into  his  trousers  pocket 
and  brought  out  a  handful  of  small  diamonds. 
He  spilled  them  out  in  a  blazing  stream  on  the 
greasy  table.  Jim  let  out  a  great  oath. 

"That's  nothing,"  Matt  said  with  triumphant 
complacence.  "I  ain't  begun  yet." 

From  one  pocket  after  another  he  continued 
bringing  forth  the  spoil.  There  were  many 
diamonds  wrapped  in  chamois  skin  that  were 
larger  than  those  in  the  first  handful.  From 
one  pocket  he  brought  out  a  handful  of  very 
small  cut  gems. 

"Sun  dust,"  he  remarked,  as  he  spilled  them 
on  the  table  in  a  space  by  themselves. 

Jim  examined  them. 

"Just  the  same,  they  retail  for  a  couple  of 
dollars  each,"  he  said.  "Is  that  all  ?" 


102  "JUST  MEAT" 

"Ain't  it  enough?"  the  other  demanded  in 
an  aggrieved  tone. 

"Sure  it  is,"  Jim  answered  with  unqualified 
approval.  "  Better' n  I  expected.  I  wouldn't 
take  a  cent  less  than  ten  thousan'  for  the 
bunch." 

"Ten  thousan',"  Matt  sneered.  "They're 
worth  twic't  that,  an'  I  don't  know  anything 
about  joolery,  either.  Look  at  that  big  boy!" 

He  picked  it  out  from  the  sparkling  heap  and 
held  it  near  to  the  lamp  with  the  air  of  an  ex 
pert,  weighing  and  judging. 

"Worth  a  thousan'  all  by  its  lonely,"  was 
Jim's  quicker  judgment. 

"A  thousan'  your  grandmother,"  was  Matt's 
scornful  rejoinder.  "You  couldn't  buy  it  for 
three." 

"Wake  me  up!  I'm  dreamin'!"  The 
sparkle  of  the  gems  was  in  Jim's  eyes,  and  he 
began  sorting  out  the  larger  diamonds  and 
examining  them.  "We're  rich  men,  Matt  — 
we'll  be  regular  swells." 

"It'll  take  years  to  get  rid  of  'em,"  was 
Matt's  more  practical  thought. 


"JUST  MEAT"  103 

"  But  think  how  we'll  live !     Nothin'  to  do 
but  spend  the  money  an'  go  on  gettin'  rid  of 


'em." 


Matt's  eyes  were  beginning  to  sparkle, 
though  sombrely,  as  his  phlegmatic  nature 
woke  up. 

"I  told  you  I  didn't  dast  think  how  fat  it 
was,"  he  murmured  in  a  low  voice. 

"What  a  killin'l  What  a  killin' !"  was  the 
other's  more  ecstatic  utterance. 

"I  almost  forgot,"  Matt  said,  thrusting  his 
hand  into  his  inside  coat  pocket. 

A  string  of  large  pearls  emerged  from  wrap 
pings  of  tissue  paper  and  chamois  skin.  Jim 
scarcely  glanced  at  them. 

"  They're  worth  money,"  he  said,  and  re 
turned  to  the  diamonds. 

A  silence  fell  on  the  two  men.  Jim  played 
with  the  gems,  running  them  through  his 
fingers,  sorting  them  into  piles,  and  spreading 
them  out  flat  and  wide.  He  was  a  slender, 
weazened  man,  nervous,  irritable,  high-strung, 
and  anaemic  —  a  typical  child  of  the  gutter,  with 
unbeautiful  twisted  features,  small-eyed,  with 


104  "JUST   MEAT" 

face  and  mouth  perpetually  and  feverishly  hun 
gry,  brutish  in  a  catlike  way,  stamped  to  the 
core  with  degeneracy. 

Matt  did  not  finger  the  diamonds.  He  sat 
with  chin  on  hands  and  elbows  on  table,  blink 
ing  heavily  at  the  blazing  array.  He  was  in 
every  way  a  contrast  to  the  other.  No  city 
had  bred  him.  He  was  heavy-muscled  and 
hairy,  gorilla-like  in  strength  and  aspect.  For 
him  there  was  no  unseen  world.  His  eyes  were 
full  and  wide  apart,  and  there  seemed  in  them  a 
certain  bold  brotherliness.  They  inspired  con 
fidence.  But  a  closer  inspection  would  have 
shown  that  his  eyes  were  just  a  trifle  too  full, 
just  a  shade  too  wide  apart.  He  exceeded, 
spilled  over  the  limits  of  normality,  and  his 
features  told  lies  about  the  man  beneath. 

"The  bunch  is  worth  fifty  thousan',"  Jim 
remarked  suddenly. 

"A  hundred  thousan',"  Matt  said. 

The  silence  returned  and  endured  a  long 
time,  to  be  broken  again  by  Jim. 

"What  in  hell  was  he  doin'  with  'em  all  at 
the  house  ?  —  that's  what  I  want  to  know. 


"JUST   MEAT"  105 

I'd  a-thought  he'd  kept  'em  in  the  safe  down 
at  the  store." 

Matt  had  just  been  considering  the  vision  of 
the  throttled  man  as  he  had  last  looked  upon 
him  in  the  dim  light  of  the  electric  lantern; 
but  he  did  not  start  at  the  mention  of  him. 

"There's  no  tellin',"  he  answered.  "He 
might  a-ben  gettin'  ready  to  chuck  his  pardner. 
He  might  a-pulled  out  in  the  mornin'  for  parts 
unknown,  if  we  hadn't  happened  along.  I 
guess  there's  just  as  many  thieves  among  honest 
men  as  there  is  among  thieves.  You  read  about 
such  things  in  the  papers,  Jim.  Pardners  is 
always  knifin'  each  other." 

A  queer,  nervous  look  came  in  the  other's 
eyes.  Matt  did  not  betray  that  he  noted  it, 
though  he  said:  — 

"What  was  you  thinkin'  about,  Jim?" 

Jim  was  a  trifle  awkward  for  the  moment. 

"Nothin',"  he  answered.  "Only  I  was 
thinkin'  just  how  funny  it  was  —  all  them  jools 
at  his  house.  What  made  you  ask?" 

"Nothin'.  I  was  just  wonderin',  that  was 
all." 


io6  "JUST  MEAT" 

The  silence  settled  down,  broken  by  an 
occasional  low  and  nervous  giggle  on  the  part 
of  Jim.  He  was  overcome  by  the  spread  of 
gems.  It  was  not  that  he  felt  their  beauty. 
He  was  unaware  that  they  were  beautiful  in 
themselves.  But  in  them  his  swift  imagination 
visioned  the  joys  of  life  they  would  buy,  and 
all  the  desires  and  appetites  of  his  diseased 
mind  and  sickly  flesh  were  tickled  by  the 
promise  they  extended.  He  builded  wondrous, 
orgy-haunted  castles  out  of  their  brilliant  fires, 
and  was  appalled  at  what  he  builded.  Then  it 
was  that  he  giggled.  It  was  all  too  impossible 
to  be  real.  And  yet  there  they  blazed  on  the 
table  before  him,  fanning  the  flame  of  the  lust 
of  him,  and  he  giggled  again. 

"I  guess  we  might  as  well  count  'em,"  Mati 
said  suddenly,  tearing  himself  away  from  his 
own  visions.  "You  watch  me  an'  see  that  it's 
square,  because  you  an'  me  has  got  to  be  on 
the  square,  Jim.  Understand  ? " 

Jim  did  not  like  this,  and  betrayed  it  in  hi& 
eyes,  while  Matt  did  not  like  what  he  saw  in 
his  partner's  eyes. 


"JUST   MEAT"  107 

"Understand?"  Matt  repeated,  almost 
menacingly. 

"Ain't  we  always  ben  square?"  the  other 
replied,  on  the  defensive,  what  of  the  treachery 
already  whispering  in  him. 

"It  don't  cost  nothin',  bein'  square  in  hard 
times,"  Matt  retorted.  "It's  bein'  square  in 
prosperity  that  counts.  When  we  ain't  got 
nothin',  we  can't  help  bein'  square.  We're 
prosperous  now,  an'  we've  got  to  be  business 
men  —  honest  business  men.  Understand  ?" 

"That's  the  talk  for  me,"  Jim  approved,  but 
deep  down  in  the  meagre  soul  of  him, —  and  in 
spite  of  him,  —  wanton  and  lawless  thoughts 
were  stirring  like  chained  beasts. 

Matt  stepped  to  the  food  shelf  behind  the 
two-burner  kerosene  cooking  stove.  He  emptied 
the  tea  from  a  paper  bag,  and  from  a  second 
bag  emptied  some  red  peppers.  Returning  to 
the  table  with  the  bags,  he  put  into  them  the 
two  sizes  of  small  diamonds.  Then  he  counted 
the  large  gems  and  wrapped  them  in  their 
tissue  paper  and  chamois  skin. 

"Hundred  an'  forty-seven  good-sized  ones," 


io8  "JUST   MEAT" 

was  his  inventory;  "twenty  real  big  ones; 
two  big  boys  and  ohe  whopper;  an'  a  couple 
of  fistfuls  of  teeny  ones  an'  dust." 

He  looked  at  Jim. 

"Correct,"  was  the  response. 

He  wrote  the  count  out  on  a  slip  of  memo 
randum  paper,  and  made  a  copy  of  it,  giving 
one  slip  to  his  partner  and  retaining  the 
other. 

"Just  for  reference,"  he  said. 

Again  he  had  recourse  to  the  food  shelf, 
where  he  emptied  the  sugar  from  a  large  paper 
bag.  Into  this  he  thrust  the  diamonds,  large 
and  small,  wrapped  it  up  in  a  bandana  hand 
kerchief,  and  stowed  it  away  under  his  pillow. 
Then  he  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and 
took  off  his  shoes. 

"An*  you  think  they're  worth  a  hundred 
thousan'?"  Jim  asked,  pausing  and  looking 
up  from  the  unlacing  of  his  shoe. 

"Sure,"  was  the  answer.  "I  seen  a  dance- 
house  girl  down  in  Arizona  once,  with  some 
big  sparklers  on  her.  They  wasn't  real.  She 
said  if  they  was  she  wouldn't  be  dancin'.  Said 


"JUST  MEAT'  109 

they'd  be  worth  all  of  fifty  thousan',  an'  she 
didn't  have  a  dozen  of  'em  all  told." 

"Who'd  work  for  a  Hvin' ?"  Jim  trium 
phantly  demanded.  "Pick  an'  shovel  work!" 
he  sneered.  "Work  like  a  dog  all  my  life,  an' 
save  all  my  wages,  an'  I  wouldn't  have  half  as 
much  as  we  got  to-night." 

"Dish  washin's  about  your  measure,  an'  you 
couldn't  get  more'n  twenty  a  month  an'  board. 
Your  riggers  is  'way  off,  but  your  point  is  well 
taken.  Let  them  that  likes  it,  work.  I  rode 
range  for  thirty  a  month  when  I  was  young  an' 
foolish.  Well,  I'm  older,  an'  I  ain't  ridin' 
range." 

He  got  into  bed  on  one  side.  Jim  put  out 
the  light  an4  followed  him  in  on  the  other 
side. 

"How's  your  arm  feel?"  Jim  queried 
amiably. 

Such  concern  was  unusual,  and  Matt  noted 
it,  and  replied :  — 

"I  guess  there's  no  danger  of  hydrophoby. 
What  made  you  ask?" 

Jim  felt  in  himself  a  guilty  stir,  and  under  his 


i io  "JUST  MEAT" 

breath  he  cursed  the  other's  way  of  asking  dis 
agreeable  questions;  but  aloud  he  answered:—- 

"  Nothin',  only  you  seemed  scared  of  it  at 
first.  What  are  you  goin'  to  do  with  your 
share,  Matt  ? " 

"  Buy  a  cattle  ranch  in  Arizona  an'  set  down 
an'  pay  other  men  to  ride  range  for  me.  There's 
some  several  I'd  like  to  see  askin'  a  job  from 
me,  damn  them !  An'  now  you  shut  your  face, 
Jim.  It'll  be  some  time  before  I  buy  that 
ranch.  Just  now  I'm  goin'  to  sleep." 

But  Jim  lay  long  awake,  nervous  and  twitch 
ing,  rolling  about  restlessly  and  rolling  himself 
wide  awake  every  time  he  dozed.  The  dia 
monds  still  blazed  under  his  eyelids,  and  the 
fire  of  them  hurt.  Matt,  in  spite  of  his  heavy 
nature,  slept  lightly,  like  a  wild  animal  alert  in 
its  sleep;  and  Jim  noticed,  every  time  he 
moved,  that  his  partner's  body  moved  suffi 
ciently  to  show  that  it  had  received  the  impres 
sion  and  that  it  was  trembling  on  the  verge  of 
awakening.  For  that  matter,  Jim  did  not 
know  whether  or  not,  frequently,  the  other  was 
awake.  Once,  quietly,  betokening  complete 


"JUST  MEAT"  in 

consciousness,  Matt  said  to  him:  "Aw,  go  to 
sleep,  Jim.  Don't  worry  about  them  jools. 
They'll  keep."  And  Jim  had  thought  that  at 
that  particular  moment  Matt  had  been  surely 
asleep. 

In  the  late  morning  Matt  was  awake  with 
Jim's  first  movement,  and  thereafter  he  awoke 
and  dozed  with  him  until  midday,  when  they 
got  up  together  and  began  dressing. 

"I'm  goin'  out  to  get  a  paper  an'  some 
bread,"  Matt  said.  "You  boil  the  coffee." 

As  Jim  listened,  unconsciously  his  gaze  left 
Matt's  face  and  roved  to  the  pillow,  beneath 
which  was  the  bundle  wrapped  in  the  bandana 
handkerchief.  On  the  instant  Matt's  face 
became  like  a  wild  beast's. 

"Look  here,  Jim,"  he  snarled.  "You've  got 
to  play  square.  If  you  do  me  dirt,  I'll  fix  you. 
Understand  ?  I'd  eat  you,  Jim.  You  know 
that.  I'd  bite  right  into  your  throat  an'  eat 
you  like  that  much  beefsteak." 

His  sunburned  skin  was  black  with  the 
surge  of  blood  in  it,  and  his  tobacco-stained 
teeth  were  exposed  by  the  snarling  lips.  Jim 


ii2  "JUST   MEAT" 

shivered  and  involuntarily  cowered.  There 
was  death  in  the  man  he  looked  at.  Only  the 
night  before  that  black-faced  man  had  killed 
another  with  his  hands,  and  it  had  not  hurt 
his  sleep.  And  in  his  own  heart  Jim  was  aware 
of  a  sneaking  guilt,  of  a  train  of  thought  that 
merited  all  that  was  threatened. 

Matt  passed  out,  leaving  him  still  shivering. 
Then  a  hatred  twisted  his  own  face,  and  he 
softly  hurled  savage  curses  at  the  door.  He 
remembered  the  jewels,  and  hastened  to  the 
bed,  feeling  under  the  pillow  for  the  bandana 
bundle.  He  crushed  it  with  his  fingers  to 
make  certain  that  it  still  contained  the  dia 
monds.  Assured  that  Matt  had  not  carried 
them  away,  he  looked  toward  the  kerosene 
stove  with  a  guilty  start.  Then  he  hurriedly 
lighted  it,  filled  the  coffee-pot  at  the  sink,  and 
put  it  over  the  flame. 

The  coffee  was  boiling  when  Matt  returned, 
and  while  the  latter  cut  the  bread  and  put 
a  slice  of  butter  on  the  table,  Jim  poured 
out  the  coffee.  It  was  not  until  he  sat  down 
and  had  taken  a  few  sips  of  the  coffee,  that 


"JUST   MEAT"  113 

Matt  pulled  out  the  morning  paper  from  his 
pocket. 

"We  was  way  off/'  he  said.  "I  told  you  I 
didn't  dast  figger  out  how  fat  it  was.  Look  at 
that." 

He  pointed  to  the  head-lines  on  the  first  page. 

"SWIFT  NEMESIS  ON  BUJANNOFF'S 
TRACK,"  they  read.  "MURDERED  IN 
HIS  SLEEP  AFTER  ROBBING  HIS 
PARTNER." 

"There  you  have  it!"  Matt  cried.  "He 
robbed  his  partner  —  robbed  him  like  a  dirty 
thief." 

"Haifa  million  of  jewels  missin',"  Jim  read 
aloud.  He  put  the  paper  down  and  stared  at 
Matt. 

"That's  what  I  told  you,"  the  latter  said. 
"What  in  hell  do  we  know  about  jools  ?  Half 
a  million !  —  an'  the  best  I  could  figger  it  was  a 
hundred  thousan'.  Go  on  an'  read  the  rest 
of  it." 

They  read  on  silently,  their  heads  side  by 
side,  the  untouched  coffee  growing  cold;  and 


H4  "JUST  MEAT" 

ever  and  anon  one  or  the  other  burst  forth  with 
some  salient  printed  fact. 

"I'd  like  to  seen  Metzner's  face  when  he 
opened  the  safe  at  the  store  this  mornin',"  Jim 
gloated. 

"He  hit  the  high  places  right  away  for  Bujan- 
noff's  house,"  Matt  explained.  "Go  on  an* 
read/' 

"Was  to  have  sailed  last  night  at  ten  on  the 
Sajoda  for  the  South  Seas  —  steamship  delayed 
by  extra  freight  - 

"That's  why  we  caught  'm  in  bed,"  Matt 
interrupted.  "It  was  just  luck  —  like  pickin' 
a  fifty-to-one  winner." 

"Sajoda  sailed  at  six  this  mornin'  — " 

"He  didn't  catch  her,"  Matt  said.  "I  saw 
his  alarm-clock  was  set  at  five.  That'd  given 
'm  plenty  of  time  .  .  .  only  I  come  along  an' 
put  the  kibosh  on  his  time.  Go  on." 

"Adolph  Metzner  in  despair  —  the  famous 
Haythorne  pearl  necklace  —  magnificently  as 
sorted  pearls  —  valued  by  experts  at  from  fifty 
to  seventy  thousan'  dollars." 

Jim  broke  off"  to  swear  vilely  and  solemnly, 


"JUST  MEAT"  113 

concluding  with,  "Those  damn  oyster-eggs 
worth  all  that  money  ! " 

He  licked  his  lips  and  added,  "They  was 
beauties  an'  no  mistake." 

"Big  Brazilian  gem,"  he  read  on.  "Eighty 
thousan'  dollars  —  many  valuable  gems  of  the 
first  water  —  several  thousan'  small  diamonds 
well  worth  forty  thousan'." 

"What  you  don't  know  about  jools  is  worth 
knowing"  Matt  smiled  good-humoredly. 

1  ( Theory  of  the  sleuths,"  Jim  read.  "  Thieves 
must  have  known  —  cleverly  kept  watch  on 
BujannofFs  actions  —  must  have  learned  his 
plan  and  trailed  him  to  his  house  with  the  fruits 
of  his  robbery  — " 

"  Clever  —  hell ! "  Matt  broke  out.  "  That's 
the  way  reputations  is  made  ...  in  the 
noospapers.  How'd  we  know  he  was  robbin* 
his  pardner  ?" 

"Anyway,  we've  got  the  goods,"  Jim  grinned. 
"Let's  look  at  'em  again." 

He  assured  himself  that  the  door  was  locked 
and  bolted,  while  Matt  brought  out  the  bundle  in 
the  bandana  and  opened  it  on  the  table. 


:i6  "JUST   MEAT" 

"Ain't  they  beauties,  though!"  Jim  ex 
claimed  at  sight  of  the  pearls ;  and  for  a  time 
he  had  eyes  only  for  them.  "Accordin'  to  the 
experts,  worth  from  fifty  to  seventy  thousan' 
dollars." 

"An*  women  like  them  things/'  Matt  com 
mented.  "An'  they'll  do  everything  to  get 
'em  —  sell  themselves,  commit  murder,  any 
thing." 

"Just  like  you  an'  me." 

"Not  on  your  life,"  Matt  retorted.  "I'll 
commit  murder  for  'em,  but  not  for  their  own 
sakes,  but  for  sake  of  what  they'll  get  me.  That's 
the  difference.  Women  want  the  jools  for 
themselves,  an'  I  want  the  jools  for  the  women 
an'  such  things  they'll  get  me." 

"Lucky  that  men  an'  women  don't  want  the 
same  things,"  Jim  remarked. 

"That's  what  makes  commerce,"  Matt 
agreed;  "people  wantin'  different  things." 

In  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  Jim  went  out 
to  buy  food.  While  he  was  gone,  Matt  cleared 
the  table  of  the  jewels,  wrapping  them  up  as 
before  and  putting  them  under  the  pillow.  Then 


"JUST   MEAT"  117 

he  lighted  the  kerosene  stove  and  started  to  boil 
water  for  the  coffee.  A  few  minutes  later,  Jim 
returned. 

"Most  surprising,"  he  remarked.  "Streets, 
an*  stores,  an'  people  just  like  they  always  was. 
Nothin'  changed.  An'  me  walkin'  along 
through  it  all  a  millionnaire.  Nobody  looked  at 
me  an'  guessed  it." 

Matt  grunted  unsympathetically.  He  had 
little  comprehension  of  the  lighter  whims  and 
fancies  of  his  partner's  imagination. 

"Did  you  get  a  porterhouse  ?"  he  demanded. 

"Sure,  an'  an  inch  thick.  It's  a  peach. 
Look  at  it." 

He  unwrapped  the  steak  and  held  it  up 
for  the  other's  inspection.  Then  he  made 
the  coffee  and  set  the  table,  while  Matt  fried 
the  steak. 

"  Don't  put  on  too  much  of  them  red  peppers," 
Jim  warned.  "I  ain't  used  to  your  Mexican 
cookin'.  You  always  season  too  hot." 

Matt  grunted  a  laugh  and  went  on  with  his 
cooking.  Jim  poured  out  the  coffee,  but  first, 
into  the  nicked  china  cup,  he  emptied  a  powder 


n8  "JUST   MEAT'1 

he  had  carried  in  his  vest  pocket  wrapped  in  a 
rice-paper.  He  had  turned  his  back  for  the 
moment  on  his  partner,  but  he  did  not  dare  to 
glance  around  at  him.  Matt  placed  a  newspaper 
on  the  table,  and  on  the  newspaper  set  the  hot 
frying-pan.  He  cut  the  steak  in  half,  and 
served  Jim  and  himself. 

"  Eat  her  while  she's  hot,"  he  counselled,  and 
with  knife  and  fork  set  the  example. 

"She's  a  dandy,"  was  Jim's  judgment,  after 
his  first  mouthful.  "But  I  tell  you  one  thing 
straight.  I'm  never  goin'  to  visit  you  on  that 
Arizona  ranch,  so  you  needn't  ask  me." 

"What's  the  matter  now?"  Matt  asked. 

"Hell's  the  matter,"  was  the  answer.  "The 
Mexican  cookin'  on  your  ranch'd  be  too  much 
for  me.  If  I've  got  hell  a-comin'  in  the  next 
life,  I'm  not  goin'  to  torment  my  insides  in  this 
one.  Damned  peppers !" 

He  smiled,  expelled  his  breath  forcibly  to 
cool  his  burning  mouth,  drank  some  coffee, 
and  went  on  eating  the  steak. 

"What  do  you  think  about  the  next  life  any- 
ivay,  Matt?"  he  asked  a  little  later,  while 


"JUST  MEAT"  119 

secretly  he  wondered  why  the  other  had  not 
yet  touched  his  coffee. 

"Ain't  no  next  life,"  Matt  answered,  pausing 
from  the  steak  to  take  his  first  sip  of  coffee. 
"Nor  heaven  nor  hell,  nor  nothin'.  You 
get  all  that's  comin'  right  here  in  this  life." 

"An*  afterward?"  Jim  queried  out  of  his 
morbid  curiosity,  for  he  knew  that  he  looked 
upon  a  man  that  was  soon  to  die.  "An*  after 
ward?"  he  repeated. 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  man  two  weeks  dead  ?" 
the  other  asked. 

Jim  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  I  have.  He  was  like  this  beefsteak 
you  an'  me  is  eatin'.  It  was  once  steer  cavortin' 
over  the  landscape.  But  now  it's  just  meat. 
That's  all,  just  meat.  An'  that's  what  you  an' 
me  an'  all  people  come  to  —  meat." 

Matt  gulped  down  the  whole  cup  of  coffee,  and 
refilled  the  cup. 

"Are  you  scared  to  die?"  he  asked. 

Jim  shook  his  head.  "What's  the  use?  I 
don't  die  anyway.  I  pass  on  an'  live  again  — " 

"To  go  stealin',  an'  lyin'  an'  snivellin'  through 


izo  "JUST   MEAT" 

another  life,  an'  go  on  that  way  forever  an*  ever 
an'  ever?"  Matt  sneered. 

"Maybe  I'll  improve,"  Jim  suggested  hope 
fully.  "Maybe  stealin'  won't  be  necessary 
in  the  life  to  come." 

He  ceased  abruptly,  and  stared  straight  before 
him,  a  frightened  expression  on  his  face. 

"What's  the  matter?"  Matt  demanded. 

"Nothin'.  I  was  just  wonderin' " — Jim 
returned  to  himself  with  an  effort  —  "  about 
this  dyin',  that  was  all." 

But  he  could  not  shake  off  the  fright  that  had 
startled  him.  It  was  as  if  an  unseen  thing  of 
gloom  had  passed  him  by,  casting  upon  him  the 
intangible  shadow  of  its  presence.  He  was 
aware  of  a  feeling  of  foreboding.  Something 
ominous  was  about  to  happen.  Calamity  hov 
ered  in  the  air.  He  gazed  fixedly  across  the 
table  at  the  other  man.  He  could  not  under 
stand.  Was  it  that  he  had  blundered  and 
poisoned  himself?  No,  Matt  had  the  nicked 
cup,  and  he  had  certainly  put  the  poison  in  the 
nicked  cup. 

It  was  all  his  own  imagination,  was  his  next 


-JUST   MEAT"  121 

thought.  It  had  played  him  tricks  before. 
Fool !  Of  course  it  was.  Of  course  something 
was  about  to  happen,  but  it  was  about  to  happen 
to  Matt.  Had  not  Matt  drunk  the  whole  cup 
of  coffee  ? 

Jim  brightened  up  and  finished  his  steak, 
sopping  bread  in  the  gravy  when  the  meat  was 
gone. 

"When  I  was  a  kid — "  he  began,  but  broke 
off  abruptly. 

Again  the  unseen  thing  of  gloom  had  flut 
tered,  and  his  being  was  vibrant  with  pre 
monition  of  impending  misfortune.  He  felt 
a  disruptive  influence  at  work  in  the  flesh  of 
him,  and  in  all  his  muscles  there  was  a  seeming 
that  they  were  about  to  begin  to  twitch.  He 
sat  back  suddenly,  and  as  suddenly  leaned 
forward  with  his  elbows  on  the  table.  A 
tremor  ran  dimly  through  the  muscles  of  his 
body.  It  was  like  the  first  rustling  of  leaves 
before  the  oncoming  of  wind.  He  clenched 
his  teeth.  It  came  again,  a  spasmodic  tensing 
of  his  muscles.  He  knew  panic  at  the  revolt 
within  his  being.  His  muscles  no  longer  rec- 


122  "JUST  MEAT" 

ognized  his  mastery  over  them.  Again  they 
spasmodically  tensed,  despite  the  will  of  him, 
for  he  had  willed  that  they  should  not  tense. 
This  was  revolution  within  himself,  this  was 
anarchy;  and  the  terror  of  impotence  rushed 
up  in  him  as  his  flesh  gripped  and  seemed  to 
seize  him  in  a  clutch,  chills  running  up  and 
down  his  back  and  sweat  starting  on  his  brow. 
He  glanced  about  the  room,  and  all  the  details 
of  it  smote  him  with  a  strange  sense  of  familiar 
ity.  It  was  as  though  he  had  just  returned  from 
a  long  journey.  He  looked  across  the  table  at 
his  partner.  Matt  was  watching  him  and  smil 
ing.  An  expression  of  horror  spread  over 
Jim's  face. 

"  My  God,  Matt ! "  he  screamed.  "  You  ain't 
doped  me  ?" 

Matt  smiled  and  continued  to  watch  him.  In 
the  paroxysm  that  followed,  Jim  did  not  become 
unconscious.  His  muscles  tensed  and  twitched 
and  knotted,  hurting  him  and  crushing  him  in 
their  savage  grip.  And  in  the  midst  of  it  all, 
it  came  to  him  that  Matt  was  acting  queerly. 
He  was  travelling  the  same  road.  The  smile 


"JUST  MEAT'1  123 

had  gone  from  his  face,  and  there  was  on  it  an 
intent  expression,  as  if  he  were  listening  to  some 
inner  tale  of  himself  and  trying  to  divine  the 
message.  Matt  got  up  and  walked  across  the 
room  and  back  again,  then  sat  down. 

"You  did  this,  Jim,"  he  said  quietly. 

"  But  I  didn't  think  you'd  try  to  fix  me,"  Jim 
answered  reproachfully. 

"Oh,  I  fixed  you  all  right,"  Matt  said,  with 
teeth  close  together  and  shivering  body.  "  What 
did  you  give  me  ?" 

"Strychnine." 

"Same  as  I  gave  you,"  Matt  volunteered. 
"It's  a  hell  of  a  mess,  ain't  it  ?" 

"You're  lyin',  Matt,"  Jim  pleaded.  "You 
ain't  doped  me,  have  you?" 

"I  sure  did,  Jim;  an'  I  didn't  overdose  you, 
neither.  I  cooked  it  in  as  neat  as  you  please  in 
your  half  the  porterhouse.  —  Hold  on  !  Where're 
you  goin'  ? " 

Jim  had  made  a  dash  for  the  door,  and  was 
throwing  back  the  bolts.  Matt  sprang  in  be 
tween  and  shoved  him  away. 

"Drug  store,"  Jim  panted.     "Drug  store." 


124  "JUST  MEAT" 

"No  you  don't.  You'll  stay  right  here. 
There  ain't  goin'  to  be  any  runnin'  out  an* 
makin'  a  poison  play  on  the  street  —  not 
with  all  them  jools  reposin'  under  the  pillow. 
Savve  ?  Even  if  you  didn't  die,  you'd  be  in  the 
hands  of  the  police  with  a  whole  lot  of  explana 
tions  comin'.  Emetics  is  the  stuff  for  poison. 
I'm  just  as  bad  bit  as  you,  an'  I'm  goin'  to  take 
a  emetic.  That's  all  they'd  give  you  at  a  drug 
store,  anyway." 

He  thrust  Jim  back  into  the  middle  of  the 
room  and  shot  the  bolts  into  place.  As  he  went 
across  the  floor  to  the  food  shelf,  he  passed  one 
hand  over  his  brow  and  flung  off  the  beaded 
sweat.  It  spattered  audibly  on  the  floor.  Jim 
watched  agonizedly  as  Matt  got  the  mustard- 
can  and  a  cup  and  ran  for  the  sink.  He  stirred 
a  cupful  of  mustard  and  water  and  drank  it 
down.  Jim  had  followed  him  and  was  reaching 
with  trembling  hands  for  the  empty  cup.  Again 
Matt  shoved  him  away.  As  he  mixed  a  second 
cupful,  he  demanded  :  — 

"D'you  think  one  cup'll  do  for  me?  You 
can  wait  till  I'm  done." 


"JUST   MEAT"  125 

Jim  started  to  totter  toward  the  door,  but 
Matt  checked  him. 

"  If  you  monkey  with  that  door,  I'll  twist  your 
neck.  Savve  ?  You  can  take  yours  when  I'm 
done.  An'  if  it  saves  you,  I'll  twist  your  neck, 
anyway.  You  ain't  got  no  chance,  nohow.  I 
told  you  many  times  what  you'd  get  if  you  did 
me  dirt." 

"But  you  did  me  dirt,  too,"  Jim  articulated 
with  an  effort. 

Matt  was  drinking  the  second  cupful,  and 
did  not  answer.  The  sweat  had  got  into  Jim's 
eyes,  and  he  could  scarcely  see  his  way  to  the 
table,  where  he  got  a  cup  for  himself.  But 
Matt  was  mixing  a  third  cupful,  and,  as  be 
fore,  thrust  him  away. 

"I  told  you  to  wait  till  I  was  done,"  Matt 
growled.  "Get  outa  my  way." 

And  Jim  supported  his  twitching  body  by 
holding  on  to  the  sink,  the  while  he  yearned 
toward  the  yellowish  concoction  that  stood  for 
life.  It  was  by  sheer  will  that  he  stood  and 
clung  to  the  sink.  His  flesh  strove  to  double 
him  up  and  bring  him  to  the  floor.  Matt  drank 


I26  "JUST  MEAT" 

the  third  cupful,  and  with  difficulty  managed 
to  get  to  a  chair  and  sit  down.  His  first  par 
oxysm  was  passing.  The  spasms  that  afflicted 
him  were  dying  away.  This  good  effect  he 
ascribed  to  the  mustard  and  water.  He  was 
safe,  at  any  rate.  He  wiped  the  sweat  from  his 
face,  and,  in  the  interval  of  calm,  found  room 
for  curiosity.  He  looked  at  his  partner. 

A  spasm  had  shaken  the  mustard  can  out  of 
Jim's  hands,  and  the  contents  were  spilled  upon 
the  floor.  He  stooped  to  scoop  some  of  the 
mustard  into  the  cup,  and  the  succeeding  spasm 
doubled  him  upon  the  floor.  Matt  smiled. 

"Stay  with  it,"  he  encouraged.  "It's  the 
stuff  all  right.  It's  fixed  me  up." 

Jim  heard  him  and  turned  toward  him  a 
stricken  face,  twisted  with  suffering  and  plead 
ing.  Spasm  now  followed  spasm  till  he  was  in 
convulsions,  rolling  on  the  floor  and  yellowing 
his  face  and  hair  in  the  mustard. 

Matt  laughed  hoarsely  at  the  sight,  but  the 
laugh  broke  midway.  A  tremor  had  run 
through  his  body.  A  new  paroxysm  was  be 
ginning.  He  arose  and  staggered  across  to 


"JUST   MEAT"  127 

tfie  sink,  where,  with  probing  forefinger,  he 
vainly  strove  to  assist  the  action  of  the  emetic. 
In  the  end,  he  clung  to  the  sink  as  Jim  had 
clung,  filled  with  the  horror  of  going  down  to 
the  floor. 

The  other's  paroxysm  had  passed,  and  he  sat 
up,  weak  and  fainting,  too  weak  to  rise,  his 
forehead  dripping,  his  lips  flecked  with  a  foam 
made  yellow  by  the  mustard  in  which  he  had 
rolled.  He  rubbed  his  eyes  with  his  knuckles, 
and  groans  that  were  like  whines  came  from  hl> 
throat. 

"What  are  you  snifflin'  about?"  Matt  de* 
manded  out  of  his  agony.  "All  you  got  to  do 
is  die.  An'  when  you  die  you're  dead." 

"I  ...  ain't  .  .  .  snifflin'  .  .  .  it's  .  .  . 
the  .  .  .  mustard  .  .  .  stingin'  .  .  .  my  .  .  . 
eyes,"  Jim  panted  with  desperate  slowness. 

It  was  his  last  successful  attempt  at  speech. 
Thereafter  he  babbled  incoherently,  pawing 
the  air  with  shaking  arms  till  a  fresh  convulsion 
stretched  him  on  the  floor. 

Matt  struggled  back  to  the  chair,  and,  doubled 
up  on  it,  with  his  arms  clasped  about  his  knees, 


128  "JUST  MEAT" 

he  fought  with  his  disintegrating  flesh.  He 
came  out  of  the  convulsion  cool  and  weak.  He 
looked  to  see  how  it  went  with  the  other,  and 
saw  him  lying  motionless. 

He  tried  to  soliloquize,  to  be  facetious,  to 
have  his  last  grim  laugh  at  life,  but  his  lips 
made  only  incoherent  sounds.  The  thought 
came  to  him  that  the  emetic  had  failed,  and 
that  nothing  remained  but  the  drug  store.  He 
looked  toward  the  door  and  drew  himself  to 
his  feet.  There  he  saved  himself  from  falling 
by  clutching  the  chair.  Another  paroxysm 
had  begun.  And  in  the  midst  of  the  paroxysm, 
with  his  body  and  all  the  parts  of  it  flying  apart 
and  writhing  and  twisting  back  again  into  knots, 
he  clung  to  the  chair  and  shoved  it  before  him 
across  the  floor.  The  last  shreds  of  his  will 
were  leaving  him  when  he  gained  the  door. 
He  turned  the  key  and  shot  back  one  bolt.  He 
fumbled  for  the  second  bolt,  but  failed.  Then 
he  leaned  his  weight  against  the  door  and  slid 
down  gently  to  the  floor. 


CREATED  HE  THEM 


CREATED  HE  THEM 

SHE  met  him  at  the  door. 
"I  did  not  think  you  would  be  so  early." 
"It  is  half  past  eight."     He  looked  at 
his  watch.     "The  train  leaves  at  9: 12." 

He  was  very  businesslike,  until  he  saw  her 
lips  tremble  as  she  abruptly  turned  and  led  the 
way. 

"It'll  be  all  right,  little  woman/'  he  said 
soothingly.  "  Doctor  Bodineau's  the  man.  He'll 
pull  him  through,  you'll  see." 

They  entered  the  living-room.  His  glance 
quested  apprehensively  about,  then  turned  to 
her. 

"Where's  Al?" 

She  did  not  answer,  but  with  a  sudden  im 
pulse  came  close  to  him  and  stood  motionless. 
She  was  a  slender,  dark-eyed  woman,  in  whose 
face  was  stamped  the  strain  and  stress  of  living. 
But  the  fine  lines  and  the  haunted  look  in  the 

13* 


i32  CREATED   HE   THEM 

eyes  were  not  the  handiwork  of  mere  worry. 
He  knew  whose  handiwork  it  was  as  he  looked 
upon  it,  and  she  knew  when  she  consulted 
her  mirror. 

"It's  no  use,  Mary,"  he  said.  He  put  his 
hand  on  her  shoulder.  "We've  tried  every 
thing.  It's  a  wretched  business,  I  know,  but 
what  else  can  we  do?  You've  failed.  Doctor 
Bodineau's  all  that's  left." 

"If  I  had  another  chance  ..."  she  began 
falteringly. 

"We've  threshed  that  all  out,"  he  answered 
harshly.  "  You've  got  to  buck  up,  now.  You 
know  what  conclusion  we  arrived  at.  You 
know  you  haven't  the  ghost  of  a  hope  in  another 
chance." 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  know  it.  But  it  is 
terrible,  the  thought  of  his  going  away  to  fight 
it  out  alone." 

"He  won't  be  alone.  There's  Doctor  Bodi- 
neau.  And  besides,  it's  a  beautiful  place." 

She  remained  silent. 

"It  is  the  only  thing,"  he  said. 

"It  is  the  only  thing,"  she  repeated  me 
chanically. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  133 

He  looked  at  his  watch.     "Where's  Al  p" 

"I'll  send  him." 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  her,  he 
walked  over  to  the  window  and  looked  out, 
drumming  absently  with  his  knuckles  on  the 
pane. 

"Hello." 

He  turned  and  responded  to  the  greeting  of 
the  man  who  had  just  entered.  There  was  a 
perceptible  drag  to  the  man's  feet  as  he  walked 
across  toward  the  window  and  paused  irreso 
lutely  halfway. 

"I've  changed  my  mind,  George,"  he  an 
nounced  hurriedly  and  nervously.  "I'm  not 
going." 

He  plucked  at  his  sleeve,  shuffled  with  his 
feet,  dropped  his  eyes,  and  with  a  strong  effort 
raised  them  again  to  confront  the  other. 

George  regarded  him  silently,  his  nostrils 
distending  and  his  lean  fingers  unconsciously 
crooking  like  an  eagle's  talons  about  to  clutch. 

In  line  and  feature  there  was  much  of  re 
semblance  between  the  two  men;  and  yet,  in 
the  strongest  resemblances  there  was  a  radical 


134  CREATED   HE   THEM 

difference.  Theirs  were  the  same  black  eyes, 
but  those  of  the  man  at  the  window  were  sharp 
and  straight  looking,  while  those  of  the  man  in 
the  middle  of  the  room  were  cloudy  and  furtive. 
He  could  not  face  the  other's  gaze,  and  con 
tinually  and  vainly  struggled  with  himself  to 
do  so.  The  high  cheek  bones  with  the  hollows 
beneath  were  the  same,  yet  the  texture  of  the 
hollows  seemed  different.  The  thin-lipped 
mouths  were  from  the  same  mould,  but  George's 
lips  were  firm  and  muscular,  while  Al's  were 
soft  and  loose  —  the  lips  of  an  ascetic  turned 
voluptuary.  There  was  also  a  sag  at  the 
corners.  His  flesh  hinted  of  grossness,  es 
pecially  so  in  the  eagle-like  aquiline  nose 
that  must  once  have  been  like  the  other's, 
but  that  had  lost  the  austerity  the  other's  still 
retained. 

Al  fought  for  steadiness  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor.  The  silence  bothered  him.  He  had  a 
feeling  that  he  was  about  to  begin  swaying  back 
and  forth.  He  moistened  his  lips  with  his 
tongue. 

"I'm  going  to  stay,"  he  said  desperately. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  135 

He  dropped  his  eyes  and  plucked  again  at  his 
sleeve. 

"And  you  are  only  twenty-six  years  old," 
George  said  at  last.  "You  poor,  feeble  old 


man." 


"Don't  be  so  sure  of  that,"  Al  retorted,  with 
a  flash  of  belligerence. 

"Do  you  remember  when  we  swam  that 
mile  and  a  half  across  the  channel?" 

"Well,  and  what  of  it?"  A  sullen  expres 
sion  was  creeping  across  Al's  face. 

"And  do  you  remember  when  we  boxed  in 
the  barn  after  school?" 

"I  could  take  all  you  gave  me." 

"All  I  gave  you!"  George's  voice  rose 
momentarily  to  a  higher  pitch.  "You  licked 
me  four  afternoons  out  of  five.  You  were 
twice  as  strong  as  I  —  three  times  as  strong. 
And  now  I'd  be  afraid  to  land  on  you  with  a  sofa 
cushion;  you'd  crumple  up  like  a  last  year's 
leaf.  You'd  die,  you  poor,  miserable  old  man." 

"You  needn't  abuse  me  just  because  I've 
changed  my  mind,"  the  other  protested,  the 
hint  of  a  whine  in  his  voice. 


136  CREATED   HE   THEM 

His  wife  entered,  and  he  looked  appeal  to 
her;  but  the  man  at  the  window  strode  sud 
denly  up  to  him  and  burst  out :  — 

"You  don't  know  your  own  mind  for  two 
successive  minutes !  You  haven't  any  mind, 
you  spineless,  crawling  worm!" 

"You  can't  make  me  angry."  Al  smiled 
with  cunning,  and  glanced  triumphantly  at  his 
wife.  "You  can't  make  me  angry,"  he  re 
peated,  as  though  the  idea  were  thoroughly 
gratifying  to  him.  "I  know  your  game.  It's 
my  stomach,  I  tell  you.  I  can't  help  it.  Before 
God,  I  can't!  Isn't  it  my  stomach,  Mary?" 

She  glanced  at  George  and  spoke  com 
posedly,  though  she  hid  a  trembling  hand  in  a 
fold  of  her  skirt. 

"Isn't  it  time?"  she  asked  softly. 

Her  husband  turned  upon  her  savagely. 
"I'm  not  going  to  go!"  he  cried.  "That's 
just  what  I've  been  telling  .  .  .  him.  And  I 
tell  you  again,  all  of  you,  I'm  not  going.  You 
can't  bully  me." 

"Why,  Al,  dear,  you  said  — "  she  began. 

"Never  mind  what  I  said!"    he  broke  out. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  137 

"I've  said  something  else  right  now,  and  you've 
heard  it,  and  that  settles  it." 

He  walked  across  the  room  and  threw  him 
self  with  emphasis  into  a  Morris  chair.  But 
the  other  man  was  swiftly  upon  him.  The 
talon-like  fingers  gripped  his  shoulders,  jerked 
him  to  his  feet,  and  held  him  there. 

"You've  reached  the  limit,  Al,  and  I  want 
you  to  understand  it.  I've  tried  to  treat  you 
like  .  .  .  like  my  brother,  but  hereafter  I  shall 
treat  you  like  the  thing  that  you  are.  Do  you 
understand  ?" 

The  anger  in  his  voice  was  cold.  The  blaze 
in  his  eyes  was  cold.  It  was  vastly  more  effec 
tive  than  any  outburst,  and  Al  cringed  under  it 
and  under  the  clutching  hand  that  was  bruising 
his  shoulder  muscles. 

"It  is  only  because  of  me  that  you  have  this 
house,  that  you  have  the  food  you  eat.  Your 
position  ?  Any  other  man  would  have  been 
shown  the  door  a  year  ago  —  two  years  ago.  I 
have  held  you  in  it.  Your  salary  has  been 
charity.  It  has  been  paid  out  of  my  pocket. 
Mary  .  .  .  her  dresses  .  .  .  that  gown  she  has 


138  CREATED   HE  THEM 

on  is  made  over;  she  wears  the  discarded 
dresses  of  her  sisters,  of  my  wife.  Charity  — 
do  you  understand  ?  Your  children  —  they  are 
wearing  the  discarded  clothes  of  my  children, 
of  the  children  of  my  neighbors  who  think  the 
clothes  went  to  some  orphan  asylum.  And  it  is 
an  orphan  asylum  ...  or  it  soon  will  be." 

He  emphasized  each  point  with  an  uncon 
scious  tightening  of  his  grip  on  the  shoulder. 
Al  was  squirming  with  the  pain  of  it.  The 
sweat  was  starting  out  on  his  forehead. 

"Now  listen  well  to  me,"  his  brother  went 
on.  "In  three  minutes  you  will  tell  me  that 
you  are  going  with  me.  If  you  don't,  Mary 
and  the  children  will  be  taken  away  from  you 
—  to-day.  You  needn't  ever  come  to  the 
office.  This  house  will  be  closed  to  you.  And 
in  six  months  I  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  bury 
ing  you.  You  have  three  minutes  to  make  up 
your  mind." 

Al  made  a  strangling  movement,  and  reached 
up  with  weak  fingers  to  the  clutching  hand. 

"  My  heart  ...  let  me  go  ...  you'll  be  the 
death  of  me,"  he  gasped. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  139 

The  hand  thrust  him  down  forcibly  into  the 
Morris  chair  and  released  him. 

The  clock  on  the  mantle  ticked  loudly. 
George  glanced  at  it,  and  at  Mary.  She  was 
leaning  against  the  table,  unable  to  conceal  her 
trembling.  He  became  unpleasantly  aware  of 
the  feeling  of  his  brother's  fingers  on  his  hand. 
Quite  unconsciously  he  wiped  the  back  of  the 
hand  upon  his  coat.  The  clock  ticked  on  in  the 
silence.  It  seemed  to  George  that  the  room 
reverberated  with  his  voice.  He  could  hear 
himself  still  speaking. 

"I'll  go/'  came  from  the  Morris  chair. 

It  was  a  weak  and  shrken  voice,  and  it  was  a 
weak  and  shaken  man  that  pulled  himself  out 
of  the  Morris  chair.  He  started  toward  the 
door. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ? "  George  de 
manded. 

"Suit  case,"  came  the  response.  "Mary'll 
send  the  trunk  later.  I'll  be  back  in  a  minute." 

The  door  closed  after  him.  A  moment  later, 
struck  with  sudden  suspicion,  George  was  open 
ing  the  door.  He  glanced  in.  His  brother 


i4o  CREATED   HE   THEM 

stood  at  a  sideboard,  in  one  hand  a  decanter,  in 
the  other  hand,  bottom  up  and  to  his  lips,  a 
whiskey  glass. 

Across  the  glass  Al  saw  that  he  was  observed. 
It  threw  him  into  a  panic.  Hastily  he  tried  to 
refill  the  glass  and  get  it  to  his  lips;  but  glass 
and  decanter  were  sent  smashing  to  the  floor. 
He  snarled.  It  was  like  the  sound  of  a  wild 
beast.  But  the  grip  on  his  shoulder  subdued 
and  frightened  him.  He  was  being  propelled 
toward  the  door. 

"The  suit  case/' he  gasped.  "It's  there  .  .  . 
in  that  room.  Let  me  get  it." 

"Where's  the  key  ?"  his  brother  asked,  when 
he  had  brought  it. 

"It  isn't  locked." 

The  next  moment  the  suit  case  was  spread 
open,  and  George's  hand  was  searching  the 
contents.  From  one  side  it  brought  out  a 
bottle  of  whiskey,  from  the  other  side  a  flask. 
He  snapped  the  case  shut. 

"Come  on,"  he  said.  "If  we  miss  one  car, 
we  miss  that  train." 

He  went  out  into  the  hallway,   leaving  Al 


CREATED   HE   THEM  141 

with  his  wife.  It  was  like  a  funeral,  George 
thought,  as  he  waited. 

His  brother's  overcoat  caught  on  the  knob  of 
the  front  door  and  delayed  its  closing  long 
enough  for  Mary's  first  sob  to  come  to  their 
ears.  George's  lips  were  very  thin  and  com 
pressed  as  he  went  down  the  steps.  In  one 
hand  he  carried  the  suit  case.  With  the  other 
hand  he  held  his  brother's  arm. 

As  they  neared  the  corner,  he  heard  the 
electric  car  a  block  away,  and  urged  his  brother 
on.  Al  was  breathing  hard.  His  feet  dragged 
and  shuffled,  and  he  held  back. 

"A  hell  of  a  brother  you  are,"  he  panted. 

For  reply,  he  received  a  vicious  jerk  on  his 
arm.  It  reminded  him  of  his  childhood  when 
he  was  hurried  along  by  some  angry  grown-up. 
And  like  a  child,  he  had  to  be  helped  up  the 
car  step.  He  sank  down  on  an  outside  seat, 
panting,  sweating,  overcome  by  the  exertion. 
He  followed  George's  eyes  as  the  latter  looked 
him  up  and  down. 

"A  hell  of  a  brother  you  are,"  was  George's 
comment  when  he  had  finished  the  inspection. 


142  CREATED   HE   THEM 

Moisture  welled  into  Al's  eyes. 
"It's  my  stomach,"  he  said  with  self-pity. 
"I  don't  wonder,"  was  the  retort.     "Burnt 
out  like  the  crater  of  a  volcano.     Fervent  heat 


isn't  a  circumstance." 


Thereafter  they  did  not  speak.  When  they 
arrived  at  the  transfer  point,  George  came  to 
himself  with  a  start.  He  smiled.  With  fixed 
gaze  that  did  not  see  the  houses  that  streamed 
across  his  field  of  vision,  he  had  himself  been 
sunk  deep  in  self-pity.  He  helped  his  brother 
from  the  car,  and  looked  up  the  intersecting 
street.  The  car  they  were  to  take  was  not  in 
sight. 

Al's  eyes  chanced  upon  the  corner  grocery 
and  saloon  across  the  way.  At  once  he  became 
restless.  His  hands  passed  beyond  his  control, 
and  he  yearned  hungrily  across  the  street  to 
the  door  that  swung  open  even  as  he  looked  and 
let  in  a  happy  pilgrim.  And  in  that  instant  he 
saw  the  white-jacketed  bar-tender  against  an 
array  of  glittering  glass.  Quite  unconsciously 
he  started  to  cross  the  street. 

"Hold  on."     George's  hand  was  on  his  arm. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  143 

"I  want  some  whiskey/'  he  answered. 

"You've  already  had  some." 

"That  was  hours  ago.  Go  on,  George,  let 
me  have  some.  It's  the  last  day.  Don't  shut 
off  on  me  until  we  get  there  —  God  knows  it 
will  be  soon  enough." 

George  glanced  desperately  up  the  street. 
The  car  was  in  sight. 

"There  isn't  time  for  a  drink,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  want  a  drink.  I  want  a  bottle." 
Al's  voice  became  wheedling.  "  Go  on,  George. 
It's  the  last,  the  very  last." 

"No."  The  denial  was  as  final  as  George's 
thin  lips  could  make  it. 

Al  glanced  at  the  approaching  car.  He  sat 
down  suddenly  on  the  curbstone. 

"What's  the  matter?"  his  brother  asked, 
with  momentary  alarm. 

"Nothing.  I  want  some  whiskey.  It's  my 
stomach." 

"Come  on  now,  get  up." 

George  reached  for  him,  but  was  anticipated, 
for  his  brother  sprawled  flat  on  the  pavement, 
oblivious  to  the  dirt  and  to  the  curious  glances 


144  CREATED    HE   THEM 

of  the  passers-by.  The  car  was  clanging  its 
gong  at  the  crossing,  a  block  away. 

"  You'll  miss  it,"  Al  grinned  from  the  pave 
ment.  "And  it  will  be  your  fault." 

George's  fists  clenched  tightly. 

"For  two  cents  I'd  give  you  a  thrashing." 

"And  miss  the  car,"  was  the  triumphant 
comment  from  the  pavement. 

George  looked  at  the  car.  It  was  halfway 
down  the  block.  He  looked  at  his  watch.  He 
debated  a  second  longer. 

"All  right,"  he  said.  "I'll  get  it.  But  you 
get  on  that  car.  If  you  miss  it,  I'll  break  the 
bottle  over  your  head." 

He  dashed  across  the  street  and  into  the 
saloon.  The  car  came  in  and  stopped.  There 
were  no  passengers  to  get  off.  Al  dragged 
himself  up  the  steps  and  sat  down.  He  smiled 
as  the  conductor  rang  the  bell  and  the  car 
started.  The  swinging  door  of  the  saloon  burst 
open.  Clutching  in  his  hand  the  suit  case  and 
a  pint  bottle  of  whiskey,  George  started  in  pur 
suit.  The  conductor,  his  hand  on  the  bell  cord, 
waited  to  see  if  it  would  be  necessary  to  stop. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  145 

It  was  not.  George  swung  lightly  aboard,  sat 
down  beside  his  brother,  and  passed  him  the 
bottle. 

"You  might  have  got  a  quart,"  Al  said  re 
proachfully. 

He  extracted  the  cork  with  a  pocket  cork 
screw,  and  elevated  the  bottle. 

"I'm  sick  .  .  .  my  stomach,"  he  explained 
in  apologetic  tones  to  the  passenger  who  sat 
next  to  him. 

On  the  train  they  sat  in  the  smoking-car. 
George  felt  that  it  was  imperative.  Also,  hav 
ing  successfully  caught  the  train,  his  heart 
softened.  He  felt  more  kindly  toward  his 
brother,  and  accused  himself  of  unnecessary 
harshness.  He  strove  to  atone  by  talking  about 
their  mother,  and  sisters,  and  the  little  affairs 
and  interests  of  the  family.  But  Al  was  morose, 
and  devoted  himself  to  the  bottle.  As  the  time 
passed,  his  rnouth  hung  looser  and  looser,  while 
the  rings  under  his  eyes  seemed  to  puff  out  and 
all  his  facial  muscles  to  relax. 

"It's  my  stomach,"  he  said,  once,  when 
he  finished  the  bottle  and  dropped  it  under 


i46  CREATED   HE   THEM 

the  seat;  but  the  swift  hardening  of  his 
brother's  face  did  not  encourage  further  ex 
planations. 

The  conveyance  that  met  them  at  the  station 
had  all  the  dignity  and  luxuriousness  of  a 
private  carriage.  George's  eyes  were  keen  for 
the  ear  marks  of  the  institution  to  which  they 
Were  going,  but  his  apprehensions  were  allayed 
from  moment  to  moment.  As  they  entered  the 
wide  gateway  and  rolled  on  through  the  spacious 
grounds,  he  felt  sure  that  the  institutional  side 
of  the  place  would  not  jar  upon  his  brother. 
It  was  more  like  a  summer  hotel,  or,  better  yet, 
a  country  club.  And  as  they  swept  on  through 
the  spring  sunshine,  the  songs  of  birds  in  his 
ears,  and  in  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  flowers, 
George  sighed  for  a  week  of  rest  in  such  a  place, 
and  before  his  eyes  loomed  the  arid  vista  of 
summer  in  town  and  at  the  office.  There  was 
not  room  in  his  income  for  his  brother  and 
himself. 

"  Let  us  take  a  walk  in  the  grounds,"  he  sug 
gested,  after  they  had  met  Doctor  Bodineau  and 
inspected  the  quarters  assigned  to  Al.  "The 


CREATED   HE   THEM  147 

carriage  leaves  for  the  station  in  half  an  hour, 
and  we'll  just  have  time." 

"It's  beautiful,"  he  remarked  a  moment 
later.  Under  his  feet  was  the  velvet  grass,  the 
trees  arched  overhead,  and  he  stood  in  mottled 
sunshine.  "I  wish  I  could  stay  for  a  month." 

"I'll  trade  places  with  you,"  Al  said  quickly. 

George  laughed  it  off,  but  he  felt  a  slaking 
of  the  heart. 

"Look  at  that  oak!"  he  cried.  "And  that 
woodpecker!  Isn't  he  a  beauty!" 

"I  don't  like  it  here,"  he  heard  his  brother 
mutter. 

George's  lips  tightened  in  preparation  for  the 
struggle,  but  he  said :  — 

"I'm  going  to  send  Mary  and  the  children 
off  to  the  mountains.  She  needs  it,  and  so  do 
they.  And  when  you're  in  shape,  I'll  send  you 
right  on  to  join  them.  Then  you  can  take 
your  summer  vacation  before  you  come  back  to 
the  office." 

"I'm  not  going  to  stay  in  this  damned  hole, 
for  all  you  talk  about  it,"  Al  announced  ab* 
ruptly. 


148  CREATED   HE   THEM 

"Yes  you  are,  and  you're  going  to  get  your 
health  and  strength  back  again,  so  that  the 
look  of  you  will  put  the  color  in  Mary's  cheeks 
where  it  used  to  be." 

"I'm  going  back  with  you."  Al's  voice  was 
firm.  "I'm  going  to  take  the  same  train  back. 
It's  about  time  for  that  carriage,  I  guess." 

"I  haven't  told  you  all  my  plans,"  George 
tried  to  go  on,  but  Al  cut  him  off. 

"You  might  as  well  quit  that.  I  don't 
want  any  of  your  soapy  talking.  You  treat  me 
like  a  child.  I'm  not  a  child.  My  mind's 
made  up,  and  I'll  show  you  how  long  it  can 
stay  made  up.  You  needn't  talk  to  me.  I 
don't  care  a  rap  for  what  you're  going  to  say." 

A  baleful  light  was  in  his  eyes,  and  to  his 
brother  he  seemed  for  all  the  world  like  a 
cornered  rat,  desperate  and  ready  to  fight. 
As  George  looked  at  him  he  remembered  back 

o 

to  their  childhood,  and  it  came  to  him  that  at 
last  was  aroused  in  Al  the 'same  old  stubborn 
strain  that  had  enabled  him,  as  a  child,  to  stand 
against  all  force  and  persuasion. 

George  abandoned  hope.     He  had  lost.     This 


CREATED  HE   THEM  149 

creature  was  not  human.  The  last  fine  instinct 
of  the  human  had  fled.  It  was  a  brute,  slug 
gish  and  stolid,  impossible  to  move  —  just  the 
raw  stuff  of  life,  combative,  rebellious,  and  in 
domitable.  And  as  he  contemplated  his  brother 
he  felt  in  himself  the  rising  up  of  a  similar 
brute.  He  became  suddenly  aware  that  his 
fingers  were  tensing  and  crooking  like  a  thug's, 
and  he  knew  the  desire  to  kill.  And  his  reason, 
turned  traitor  at  last,  counselled  that  he  should 
kill,  that  it  was  the  only  thing  left  for  him 
to  do. 

He  was  aroused  by  a  servant  calling  to  him 
through  the  trees  that  the  carriage  was  waiting. 
He  answered.  Then,  looking  straight  before 
him,  he  discovered  his  brother.  He  had  forgotten 
it  was  his  brother.  It  had  been  only  a  thing 
the  moment  before.  He  began  to  talk,  and  as 
he  talked  the  way  became  clear  to  him.  His 
reason  had  not  turned  traitor.  The  brute  in 
him  had  merely  orientated  his  reason. 

"You  are  no  earthly  good,  Al,"  he  said. 
"You  know  that.  You've  made  Mary's  life  a 
heli.  You  are  a  curse  to  vour  children.  And 


i|e  CREATED   HE   THEM 

you  have  not  made  life  exactly  a  paradise  for 
the  rest  of  us." 

"There's  no  use  your  talking,"  Al  inter 
jected.  "I'm  not  going  to  stay  here." 

"That's  what  I'm  coming  to,"  George  con 
tinued.  "You  don't  have  to  stay  here."  (Al's 
face  brightened,  and  he  involuntarily  made  a 
movement,  as  though  about  to  start  toward  the 
carriage.)  "On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  you  should  return  with  me. 
There  is  another  way." 

George's  hand  went  to  his  hip  pocket  and 
appeared  with  a  revolver.  It  lay  along  his 
palm,  the  butt  toward  Al,  and  toward  Al  he 
extended  it.  At  the  same  time,  with  his  head, 
he  indicated  the  near-by  thicket. 

"You  can't  bluff  me,"  Al  snarled. 

"It  is  not  a  bluff,  Al.  Look  at  me.  I 
mean  it.  And  if  you  don't  do  it  for  yourself,  I 
shall  have  to  do  it  for  you." 

They  faced  each  other,  the  proffered  revolver 
still  extended.  Al  debated  for  a  moment,  then 
his  eyes  blazed.  With  a  quick  movement  he 
seized  the  revolver. 


CREATED   HE   THEM  151 

"My  God !  I'll  do  it,"  he  said.  "I'll  show 
you  what  I've  got  in  me." 

George  felt  suddenly  sick.  He  turned  away. 
He  did  not  see  his  brother  enter  the  thicket, 
but  he  heard  the  passage  of  his  body  through 
the  leaves  and  branches. 

"Good-by,  Al,"  he  called. 

"Good-by,"  came  from  the  thicket. 

George  felt  the  sweat  upon  his  forehead. 
He  began  mopping  his  face  with  his  handker 
chief.  He  heard,  as  from  a  remote  distance, 
the  voice  of  the  servant  again  calling  to  him 
that  the  carriage  was  waiting.  The  woodpecker 
dropped  down  through  the  mottled  sunshine 
and  lighted  on  the  trunk  of  a  tree  a  dozen  feet 
away.  George  felt  that  it  was  all  a  dream, 
and  yet  through  it  all  he  felt  supreme  justifica 
tion.  It  was  the  right  thing  to  do.  It  was  the 
only  thing. 

His  whole  body  gave  a  spasmodic  start,  as 
though  the  revolver  had  been  fired.  It  was  the 
voice  of  Al,  close  at  his  back. 

"Here's  your  gun,"  Al  said.     "I'll  stay." 

The  servant  appeared  among  the  trees,  ap- 


152  CREATED   HE   THEM 

preaching  rapidly  and  calling  anxiously.  George 
put  the  weapon  in  his  pocket  and  caught  both 
his  brother's  hands  in  his  own. 

"God  bless  you,  old  man,"  he  murmured; 
"and"  —  with  a  final  squeeze  of  the  hands  — 
"good  luck!" 

"I'm  coming,"  he  called  to  the  servant;  and 
turned  and  ran  through  the  trees  toward  the 
carriage. 


THE  CHINAGO 


THE  CHINAGO 

"  The  coral  waxes,  the  palm  grows,  but  man  departs/* 
• —  Tahitian  proverb. 

AH  CHO  did  not  understand  French. 
He  sat  in  the  crowded  court  room,  very 
weary  and  bored,  listening  to  the  un 
ceasing,  explosive  French  that  now  one  official 
and  now  another  uttered.  It  was  just  so  much 
gabble  to  Ah  Cho,  and  he  marvelled  at  the 
stupidity  of  the  Frenchmen  who  took  so  long 
to  find  out  the  murderer  of  Chung  Ga,  and  who 
did  not  find  him  at  all.  The  five  hundred 
coolies  on  the  plantation  knew  that  Ah  San  had 
done  the  killing,  and  here  was  Ah  San  not  even 
arrested.  It  was  true  that  all  the  coolies  had 
agreed  secretly  not  to  testify  against  one  an 
other;  but  then,  it  was  so  simple,  the  French 
men  should  have  been  able  to  discover  that  Ah 
San  was  the  man.  They  were  very  stupid,  these 
Frenchmen. 

iSS 


156  THE   CHINAGO 

Ah  Cho  had  done  nothing  of  which  to  be 
afraid.  He  had  had  no  hand  in  the  killing. 
It  was  true  he  had  been  present  at  it,  and 
Schemmer,  the  overseer  on  the  plantation,  had 
rushed  into  the  barracks  immediately  afterward 
and  caught  him  there,  along  with  four  or  five 
others ;  but  what  of  that  ?  Chung  Ga  had  been 
stabbed  only  twice.  It  stood  to  reason  that 
five  or  six  men  could  not  inflict  two  stab  wounds. 
At  the  most,  if  a  man  had  struck  but  once,  only 
two  men  could  have  done  it. 

So  it  was  that  Ah  Cho  reasoned,  when  he, 
along  with  his  four  companions,  had  lied  and 
blocked  and  obfuscated  in  their  statements  to 
the  court  concerning  what  had  taken  place. 
They  had  heard  the  sounds  of  the  killing,  and, 
like  Schemmer,  they  had  run  to  the  spot.  They 
had  got  there  before  Schemmer  —  that  was  all. 
True,  Schemmer  had  testified  that,  attracted  by 
the  sound  of  quarrelling  as  he  chanced  to  pass 
by,  he  had  stood  for  at  least  five  minutes  out 
side;  that  then,  when  he  entered,  he  found  the 
prisoners  already  inside;  and  that  they  had  not 
entered  just  before,  because  he  had  been  stand- 


THE   CHINAGO  157 

ing  by  the  one  door  to  the  barracks.  But  what 
of  that  ?  Ah  Cho  and  his  four  fellow-prisoners 
had  testified  that  Schemmer  was  mistaken.  In 
the  end  they  would  be  let  go.  They  were  all 
confident  of  that.  Five  men  could  not  have 
their  heads  cut  off  for  two  stab  wounds.  Be 
sides,  no  foreign  devil  had  seen  the  killing. 
But  these  Frenchmen  were  so  stupid.  In 
China,  as  Ah  Cho  well  knew,  the  magistrate 
would  order  all  of  them  to  the  torture  and  learn 
the  truth.  The  truth  was  very  easy  to  learn 
under  torture.  But  these  Frenchmen  did  not 
torture  —  bigger  fools  they  !  Therefore  they 
would  never  find  out  who  killed  Chung  Ga. 

But  Ah  Cho  did  not  understand  everything. 
The  English  Company  that  owned  the  planta 
tion  had  imported  into  Tahiti,  at  great  expense, 
the  five  hundred  coolies.  The  stockholders  were 
clamoring  for  dividends,  and  the  Company  had 
not  yet  paid  any;  wherefore  the  Company  did 
not  want  its  costly  contract  laborers  to  start  the 
practice  of  killing  one  another.  Also,  there  were 
the  French,  eager  and  willing  to  impose  upon 
the  Chinagos  the  virtues  and  excellences  of 


158  THE   CHINAGO 

French  law.  There  was  nothing  like  setting  an 
example  once  in  a  while;  and,  besides,  of  what 
use  was  New  Caledonia  except  to  send  men  to 
live  out  their  days  in  misery  and  pain  in  pay 
ment  of  the  penalty  for  being  frail  and  human  ? 
Ah  Cho  did  not  understand  all  this.  He  sat 
in  the  court  room  and  waited  for  the  baffled 
judgment  that  would  set  him  and  his  comrades 
free  to  go  back  to  the  plantation  and  work  out 
the  terms  of  their  contracts.  This  judgment 
would  soon  be  rendered.  Proceedings  were 
drawing  to  a  close.  He  could  see  that.  There 
was  no  more  testifying,  no  more  gabble  of 
tongues.  The  French  devils  were  tired,  too, 
and  evidently  waiting  for  the  judgment.  And 
as  he  waited  he  remembered  back  in  his  life 
to  the  time  when  he  had  signed  the  contract 
and  set  sail  in  the  ship  for  Tahiti.  Times  had 
been  hard  in  his  seacoast  village,  and  when  he 
indentured  himself  to  labor  for  five  years  in  the 
South  Seas  at  fifty  cents  Mexican  a  day,  he  had 
thought  himself  fortunate.  There  were  men  in 
his  village  who  toiled  a  whole  year  for  ten  dol 
lars  Mexican,  and  there  were  women  who  made 


THE   CHINAGO  159 

nets  all  the  year  round  for  five  dollars,  while  in 
the  houses  of  shopkeepers  there  were  maid 
servants  who  received  four  dollars  for  a  year  of 
service.  And  here  he  was  to  receive  fifty  cents 
a  day;  for  one  day,  only  one  day,  he  was  to 
receive  that  princely  sum !  What  if  the  work 
were  hard  ?  At  the  end  of  the  five  years  he 
would  return  home  —  that  was  in  the  contract 
—  and  he  would  never  have  to  work  again. 
He  would  be  a  rich  man  for  life,  with  a  house  of 
his  own,  a  wife,  and  children  growing  up  to 
venerate  him.  Yes,  and  back  of  the  house  he 
would  have  a  small  garden,  a  place  of  medita 
tion  and  repose,  with  goldfish  in  a  tiny  lakelet, 
and  wind  bells  tinkling  in  the  several  trees,  and 
there  would  be  a  high  wall  all  around  so  that 
his  meditation  and  repose  should  be  undis 
turbed. 

Well,  he  had  worked  out  three  of  those  five 
years.  He  was  already  a  wealthy  man  (in  his 
own  country),  through  his  earnings,  and  only 
two  years  more  intervened  between  the  cotton 
plantation  on  Tahiti  and  the  meditation  and  re 
pose  that  awaited  him.  But  just  now  he  was 


160  THE    CHINAGO 

losing  money  because  of  the  unfortunate  acci 
dent  of  being  present  at  the  killing  of  Chung 
Ga.  He  had  lain  three  weeks  in  prison,  and 
for  each  day  of  those  three  weeks  he  had  lost 
fifty  cents.  But  now  judgment  would  soon  be 
given,  and  he  would  go  back  to  work. 

Ah  Cho  was  twenty-two  years  old.  He  was 
happy  and  good-natured,  and  it  was  easy  for 
him  to  smile.  While  his  body  was  slim  in  the 
Asiatic  way,  his  face  was  rotund.  It  was  round, 
like  the  moon,  and  it  irradiated  a  gentle  com 
placence  and  a  sweet  kindliness  of  spirit  that 
was  unusual  among  his  countrymen.  Nor  did 
his  looks  belie  him.  He  never  caused  trouble, 
never  took  part  in  wrangling.  He  did  not 
gamble.  His  soul  was  not  harsh  enough  for 
the  soul  that  must  belong  to  a  gambler.  He 
was  content  with  little  things  and  simple  pleas 
ures.  The  hush  and  quiet  in  the  cool  of  the 
day  after  the  blazing  toil  in  the  cotton  field  was 
to  him  an  infinite  satisfaction.  He  could  sit  for 
hours  gazing  at  a  solitary  flower  and  philoso 
phizing  about  the  mysteries  and  riddles  of 
being.  A  blue  heron  on  a  tiny  crescent  of 


THE   CHINAGO  161 

sandy  beach,  a  silvery  splatter  of  flying  fish,  or 
a  sunset  of  pearl  and  rose  across  the  lagoon, 
could  entrance  him  to  all  forgetfulness  of  the 
procession  of  wearisome  days  and  of  the  heavy 
lash  of  Schemmer. 

Schemmer,  Karl  Schemmer,  was  a  brute,  a 
brutish  brute.  But  he  earned  his  salary.  He 
got  the  last  particle  of  strength  out  of  the  five 
hundred  slaves ;  for  slaves  they  were  until  their 
term  of  years  was  up.  Schemmer  worked  hard 
to  extract  the  strength  from  those  five  hundred 
sweating  bodies  and  to  transmute  it  into  bales 
of  fluffy  cotton  ready  for  export.  His  domi 
nant,  iron-clad,  primeval  brutishness  was  what 
enabled  him  to  effect  the  transmutation.  Also, 
he  was  assisted  by  a  thick  leather  belt,  three 
inches  wide  and  a  yard  in  length,  with  which  he 
always  rode  and  which,  on  occasion,  could  come 
down  on  the  naked  back  of  a  stooping  coolie 
with  a  report  like  a  pistol-shot.  These  reports 
were  frequent  when  Schemmer  rode  down  the 
furrowed  field. 

Once,  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  year  of 
contract  labor,  he  had  killed  a  coolie  with  a 


i62  THE    CHINAGO 

single  blow  of  his  fist.  He  had  not  exactly 
crushed  the  man's  head  like  an  egg-shell,  but 
the  blow  had  been  sufficient  to  addle  what  was 
inside,  and,  after  being  sick  for  a  week,  the 
man  had  died.  But  the  Chinese  had  not  com 
plained  to  the  French  devils  that  ruled  over 
Tahiti.  It  was  their  own  lookout.  Schemmer 
was  their  problem.  They  must  avoid  his 
wrath  as  they  avoided  the  venom  of  the  centi 
pedes  that  lurked  in  the  grass  or  crept  into  the 
sleeping  quarters  on  rainy  nights.  The  China- 
gos  —  such  they  were  called  by  the  indolent, 
brown-skinned  island  folk  —  saw  to  it  that  they 
did  not  displease  Schemmer  too  greatly.  This 
was  equivalent  to  rendering  up  to  him  a  full 
measure  of  efficient  toil.  That  blow  of  Schem 
mer' s  fist  had  been  worth  thousands  of  dollars 
to  the  Company,  and  no  trouble  ever  came  of 
it  to  Schemmer. 

The  French,  with  no  instinct  for  coloniza 
tion,  futile  in  their  childish  playgame  of  develop 
ing  the  resources  of  the  island,  were  only  too 
glad  to  see  the  English  Company  succeed. 
What  matter  of  Schemmer  and  his  redoubtable 


THE   CHINAGO  163 

fist  ?  The  Chinago  that  died  ?  Well,  he  was 
only  a  Chinago.  Besides,  he  died  of  sunstroke, 
as  the  doctor's  certificate  attested.  True,  in  all 
the  history  of  Tahiti  no  one  had  ever  died  of 
sunstroke.  But  it  was  that,  precisely  that, 
which  made  the  death  of  this  Chinago  unique. 
The  doctor  said  as  much  in  his  report.  He 
was  very  candid.  Dividends  must  be  paid,  or 
else  one  more  failure  would  be  added  to  the  long 
history  of  failure  in  Tahiti. 

There  was  no  understanding  these  white 
devils.  Ah  Cho  pondered  their  inscrutableness 
as  he  sat  in  the  court  room  waiting  the  judgment. 
There  was  no  telling  what  went  on  at  the  back 
of  their  minds.  He  had  seen  a  few  of  the 
white  devils.  They  were  all  alike  —  the  officers 
and  sailors  on  the  ship,  the  French  officials, 
the  several  white  men  on  the  plantation,  in 
cluding  Schemmer.  Their  minds  all  moved  in 
mysterious  ways  there  was  no  getting  at.  They 
grew  angry  without  apparent  cause,  and  their 
anger  was  always  dangerous.  They  were  like 
wild  beasts  at  such  times.  They  worried  about 
little  things,  and  on  occasion  could  out-toil  even 


164  THE   CHINAGO 

a  Chinago.  They  were  not  temperate  as 
Chinagos  were  temperate;  they  were  gluttons, 
eating  prodigiously  and  drinking  more  pro 
digiously.  A  Chinago  never  knew  when  an  act 
would  please  them  or  arouse  a  storm  of  wrath. 
A  Chinago  could  never  tell.  What  pleased  one 
time,  the  very  next  time  might  provoke  an  out 
burst  of  anger.  There  was  a  curtain  behind 
the  eyes  of  the  white  devils  that  screened  the 
backs  of  their  minds  from  the  Chinago's  gaze. 
And  then,  on  top  of  it  all,  was  that  terrible  effi 
ciency  of  the  white  devils,  that  ability  to  do 
things,  to  make  things  po,  to  work  results,  to 
bend  to  their  wills  all  creeping,  crawling  things, 
and  the  powers  of  the  very  elements  them 
selves.  Yes,  the  white  men  were  strange  and 
wonderful,  and  they  were  devils.  Look  at 
Schemmer. 

Ah  Cho  wondered  why  the  judgment  was  so 
long  in  forming.  Not  a  man  on  trial  had  laid 
hand  on  Chung  Ga.  Ah  San  alone  had  killed 
him.  Ah  San  had  done  it,  bending  Chung  Ga's 
head  back  with  one  hand  by  a  grip  of  his 
queue,  and  with  the  other  hand,  from  behind, 


THE   CHINAGO  i6s 

reaching  over  and  driving  the  knife  into  his 
body.  Twice  had  he  driven  it  in.  There  in 
the  court  room,  with  closed  eyes,  Ah  Cho  saw 
the  killing  acted  over  again  —  the  squabble,  the 
vile  words  bandied  back  and  forth,  the  filth 
and  insult  flung  upon  venerable  ancestors,  the 
curses  laid  upon  unbegotten  generations,  the 
leap  of  Ah  San,  the  grip  on  the  queue  of  Chung 
Ga,  the  knife  that  sank  twice  into  his  flesh,  the 
bursting  open  of  the  door,  the  irruption  of 
Schemmer,  the  dash  for  the  door,  the  escape  of 
Ah  San,  the  flying  belt  of  Schemmer  that  drove 
the  rest  into  the  corner,  and  the  firing  of  the 
revolver  as  a  signal  that  brought  help  to  Schem 
mer.  Ah  Cho  shivered  as  he  lived  it  over. 
One  blow  of  the  belt  had  bruised  his  cheek, 
taking  off  some  of  the  skin.  Schemmer  had 
pointed  to  the  bruises  when,  on  the  witness- 
stand,  he  had  identified  Ah  Cho.  It  was  only 
just  now  that  the  marks  had  become  no  longer 
visible.  That  had  been  a  blow.  Half  an  inch 
nearer  the  centre  and  it  would  have  taken  out 
his  eye.  Then  Ah  Cho  forgot  the  whole  hap 
pening  in  a  vision  he  caught  of  the  garden  of 


166  THE   CHINAGO 

meditation  and  repose  that  would  be  his  when 
he  returned  to  his  own  land. 

He  sat  with  impassive  face,  while  the  magis 
trate  rendered  the  judgment.  Likewise  were 
the  faces  of  his  four  companions  impassive. 
And  they  remained  impassive  when  the  inter 
preter  explained  that  the  five  of  them  had  been 
found  guilty  of  the  murder  of  Chung  Ga,  and 
that  Ah  Chow  should  have  his  head  cut  off, 
Ah  Cho  serve  twenty  years  in  prison  in  New 
Caledonia,  Wong  Li  twelve  years,  and  Ah 
Tong  ten  years.  There  was  no  use  in  getting 
excited  about  it.  Even  Ah  Chow  remained  ex 
pressionless  as  a  mummy,  though  it  was  his 
head  that  was  to  be  cut  off.  The  magistrate 
added  a  few  words,  and  the  interpreter  ex 
plained  that  Ah  Chow's  face  having  been  most 
severely  bruised  by  Schemmer's  strap  had  made 
his  identification  so  positive  that,  since  one  man 
must  die,  he  might  as  well  be  that  man.  Also, 
the  fact  that  Ah  Cho's  face  likewise  had  been 
severely  bruised,  conclusively  proving  his  pres 
ence  at  the  murder  and  his  undoubted  partici 
pation,  had  merited  him  the  twenty  years  of 


THE   CHINAGO  167 

penal  servitude.  And  down  to  the  ten  years 
of  Ah  Tong,  the  proportioned  reason  for  each 
sentence  was  explained.  Let  the  Chinagos 
take  the  lesson  to  heart,  the  Court  said  finally, 
for  they  must  learn  that  the  law  would  be  ful 
filled  in  Tahiti  though  the  heavens  fell. 

The  five  Chinagos  were  taken  back  to  jail. 
They  were  not  shocked  nor  grieved.  The  sen 
tences  being  unexpected  was  quite  what  they 
were  accustomed  to  in  their  dealings  with  the 
white  devils.  From  them  a  Chinago  rarely  ex 
pected  more  than  the  unexpected.  The  heavy 
punishment  for  a  crime  they  had  not  com 
mitted  was  no  stranger  than  the  countless 
strange  things  that  white  devils  did.  In  the 
weeks  that  followed,  Ah  Cho  often  contem 
plated  Ah  Chow  with  mild  curiosity.  His 
head  was  to  be  cut  off  by  the  guillotine 
that  was  being  erected  on  the  plantation. 
For  him  there  would  be  no  declining  years,  no 
gardens  of  tranquillity.  Ah  Cho  philosophized 
and  speculated  about  life  and  death.  As  for 
himself,  he  was  not  perturbed.  Twenty  years 
were  merely  twenty  years.  By  that  much  was 


168  THE   CHINAGO 

his  garden  removed  from  him  —  that  was  all. 
He  was  young,  and  the  patience  of  Asia  was  in 
his  bones.  He  could  wait  those  twenty  years, 
and  by  that  time  the  heats  of  his  blood  would 
be  assuaged  and  he  would  be  better  fitted  for 
that  garden  of  calm  delight.  He  thought  of  a 
name  for  it;  he  would  call  it  The  Garden  of 
the  Morning  Calm.  He  was  made  happy  all 
day  by  the  thought,  and  he  was  inspired  to  de 
vise  a  moral  maxim  on  the  virtue  of  patience, 
which  maxim  proved  a  great  comfort,  especially 
to  Wong  Li  and  Ah  Tong.  Ah  Chow,  how 
ever,  did  not  care  for  the  maxim.  His  head  was 
to  be  separated  from  his  body  in  so  short  a 
time  that  he  had  no  need  for  patience  to  wait 
for  that  event.  He  smoked  well,  ate  well, 
slept  well,  and  did  not  worry  about  the  slow 
passage  of  time. 

Cruchot  was  a  gendarme.  He  had  seen 
twenty  years  of  service  in  the  colonies,  from 
Nigeria  and  Senegal  to  the  South  Seas,  and 
those  twenty  years  had  not  perceptibly  bright 
ened  his  dull  mind.  He  was  as  slow-witted  and 
stupid  as  in  his  peasant  days  in  the  south  of 


THE   CHINAGO  169 

France.  He  knew  discipline  and  fear  of  au 
thority,  and  from  God  down  to  the  sergeant  of 
gendarmes  the  only  difference  to  him  was  the 
measure  of  slavish  obedience  which  he  rendered. 
In  point  of  fact,  the  sergeant  bulked  bigger  in 
his  mind  than  God,  except  on  Sundays  when 
God's  mouthpieces  had  their  say.  God  was 
usually  very  remote,  while  the  sergeant  was 
ordinarily  very  close  at  hand. 

Cruchot  it  was  who  received  the  order  from 
the  Chief  Justice  to  the  jailer  commanding  that 
functionary  to  deliver  over  to  Cruchot  the  per 
son  of  Ah  Chow.  Now,  it  happened  that  the 
Chief  Justice  had  given  a  dinner  the  night 
before  to  the  captain  and  officers  of  the  French 
man-of-war.  His  hand  was  shaking  when  he 
wrote  out  the  order,  and  his  eyes  were  aching 
so  dreadfully  that  he  did  not  read  over  the 
order.  It  was  only  a  Chinago's  life  he  was 
signing  away,  anyway.  So  he  did  not  notice 
that  he  had  omitted  the  final  letter  in  Ah 
Chow's  name.  The  order  read  "Ah  Cho," 
and,  when  Cruchot  presented  the  order,  the 
jailer  turned  over  to  him  the  person  of  Ah  Cho. 


i7o  THE   CHINAGO 

Cruchot  took  that  person  beside  him  on  the 
seat  of  a  wagon,  behind  two  mules,  and  drove 
away. 

Ah  Cho  was  glad  to  be  out  in  the  sunshine. 
He  sat  beside  the  gendarme  and  beamed.  He 
beamed  more  ardently  than  ever  when  he 
noted  the  mules  headed  south  toward  Atimaono. 
Undoubtedly  Schemmer  had  sent  for  him  to  be 
brought  back.  Schemmer  wanted  him  to  work. 
Very  well,  he  would  work  well.  Schemmer 
would  never  have  cause  to  complain.  It  was  a 
hot  day.  There  had  been  a  stoppage  of  the 
trades.  The  mules  sweated,  Cruchot  sweated, 
and  Ah  Cho  sweated.  But  it  was  Ah  Cho  that 
bore  the  heat  with  the  least  concern.  He  had 
toiled  three  years  under  that  sun  on  the  plan 
tation.  He  beamed  and  beamed  with  such 
genial  good  nature  that  even  Cruchot' s  heavy 
mind  was  stirred  to  wonderment. 

"You  are  very  funny,"  he  said  at  last. 

Ah  Cho  nodded  and  beamed  more  ardently. 
Unlike  the  magistrate,  Cruchot  spoke  to  him 
in  the  Kanaka  tongue,  and  this,  like  all  China- 
gos  and  all  foreign  devils,  Ah  Cho  understood 


THE   CHINAGO  171 

"You  laugh  too  much,"  Cruchot  chided. 
"One's  heart  should  be  full  of  tears  on  a  day 
like  this." 

"I  am  glad  to  get  out  of  the  jail." 

"Is  that  all?"  The  gendarme  shrugged  his 
shoulders. 

"  Is  it  not  enough  ? "  was  the  retort. 

"Then  you  are  not  glad  to  have  your  head 
cut  off?" 

Ah  Cho  looked  at  him  in  abrupt  perplexity 
and  said :  — 

"Why,  I  am  going  back  to  Atimaono  to  work 
on  the  plantation  for  Schemmer.  Are  you  not 
taking  me  to  Atimaono?" 

Cruchot  stroked  his  long  mustaches  reflec 
tively.  "Well,  well,"  he  said  finally,  with  a 
flick  of  the  whip  at  the  off  mule,  "so  you  don't 
know?" 

"Know  what?"  Ah  Cho  was  beginning  to 
feel  a  vague  alarm.  "Won't  Schemmer  let  me 
work  for  him  any  more  ? " 

"Not  after  to-day."  Cruchot  laughed 
heartily.  It  was  a  good  joke.  "You  see,  you 
won't  be  able  to  work  after  to-day.  A  man  with 


1 72  THE    CHINAGO 

his  head  off  can't  work,  eh?"  He  poked  the 
Chinago  in  the  ribs,  and  chuckled. 

Ah  Cho  maintained  silence  while  the  mules 
trotted  a  hot  mile.  Then  he  spoke:  "Is 
Schemmer  going  to  cut  off  my  head  ?" 

Cruchot  grinned  as  he  nodded. 

"It  is  a  mistake,"  said  Ah  Cho,  gravely.  "I 
am  not  the  Chinago  that  is  to  have  his  head 
cut  off.  I  am  Ah  Cho.  The  honorable  judge 
has  determined  that  I  am  to  stop  twenty  years 
in  New  Caledonia." 

The  gendarme  laughed.  It  was  a  good  joke, 
this  funny  Chinago  trying  to  cheat  the  guillo 
tine.  The  mules  trotted  through  a  cocoanut 
grove  and  for  half  a  mile  beside  the  sparkling 
sea  before  Ah  Cho  spoke  again. 

"I  tell  you  I  am  not  Ah  Chow.  The  honor 
able  judge  did  not  say  that  my  head  was  to  go> 
off." 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  said  Cruchot,  with  the 
philanthropic  intention  of  making  it  easier  for 
his  prisoner.  "It  is  not  difficult  to  die  that 
way."  He  snapped  his  fingers.  "It  is  quick 
—  like  that.  It  is  not  like  hanging  on  the  end 


THE   CHINAGO  173 

of  a  rope  and  kicking  and  making  faces  for 
five  minutes.  It  is  like  killing  a  chicken  with 
a  hatchet.  You  cut  its  head  off,  that  is  all. 
And  it  is  the  same  with  a  man.  Pouf !  —  it  is 
over.  It  doesn't  hurt.  You  don't  even  think 
it  hurts.  You  don't  think.  Your  head  is 
gone,  so  you  cannot  think.  It  is  very  good. 
That  is  the  way  I  want  to  die  —  quick,  ah, 
quick.  You  are  lucky  to  die  that  way.  You 
might  get  the  leprosy  and  fall  to  pieces  slowly, 
a  finger  at  a  time,  and  now  and  again  a  thumb, 
also  the  toes.  I  knew  a  man  who  was  burned 
by  hot  water.  It  took  him  two  days  to  die. 
You  could  hear  him  yelling  a  kilometre  away. 
But  you  ?  Ah  !  so  easy  !  Chck  !  —  the  knife 
cuts  your  neck  like  that.  It  is  finished.  The 
knife  may  even  tickle.  Who  can  say  ?  No 
body  who  died  that  way  ever  came  back 
to  say." 

He  considered  this  last  an  excruciating  joke, 
and  permitted  himself  to  be  convulsed  with 
laughter  for  half  a  minute.  Part  of  his  mirth 
was  assumed,  but  he  considered  it  his  humane 
duty  to  cheer  up  the  Chinago. 


174  THE    CHINAGO 

"But  I  tell  you  I  am  Ah  Cho,"  the  other  per 
sisted.  "I  don't  want  my  head  cut  off." 

Cruchot  scowled.  The  Chinago  was  carry 
ing  the  foolishness  too  far. 

"I  am  not  Ah  Chow — "  Ah  Cho  began. 

"That  will  do,"  the  gendarme  interrupted. 
He  puffed  up  his  cheeks  and  strove  to  appear 
fierce. 

"I  tell  you  I  am  not — "  Ah  Cho  began 
again. 

"Shut  up!"    bawled  Cruchot. 

After  that  they  rode  along  in  silence.  It 
was  twenty  miles  from  Papeete  to  Atimaono, 
and  over  half  the  distance  was  covered  by  the 
time  the  Chinago  again  ventured  into  speech. 

"I  saw  you  in  the  court  room,  when  the 
honorable  judge  sought  after  our  guilt,"  he 
began.  "Very  good.  And  do  you  remember 
that  Ah  Chow,  whose  head  is  to  be  cut  off  — 
do  you  remember  that  he  —  Ah  Chow  —  was 
a  tall  man  ?  Look  at  me." 

He  stood  up  suddenly,  and  Cruchot  saw  that 
he  was  a  short  man.  And  just  as  suddenly 
Cruchot  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  memory  picture 


THE   CHINAGO  175 

of  Ah  Chow,  and  in  that  picture  Ah  Chow  was 
tall.  To  the  gendarme  all  Chinagos  looked 
alike.  One  face  was  like  another.  But  be 
tween  tallness  and  shortness  he  could  differen 
tiate,  and  he  knew  that  he  had  the  wrong  man 
beside  him  on  the  seat.  He  pulled  up  the 
mules  abruptly,  so  that  the  pole  shot  ahead  of 
them,  elevating  their  collars. 

"You  see,  it  was  a  mistake,"  said  Ah  Cho, 
smiling  pleasantly. 

But  Cruchot  was  thinking.  Already  he  re 
gretted  that  he  had  stopped  the  wagon.  He  was 
unaware  of  the  error  of  the  Chief  Justice,  and 
he  had  no  way  of  working  it  out;  but  he  did 
know  that  he  had  been  given  this  Chinago  to 
take  to  Atimaono  and  that  it  was  his  duty  to 
take  him  to  Atimaono.  What  if  he  was  the 
wrong  man  and  they  cut  his  head  off  ?  It  was 
only  a  Chinago  when  all  was  said,  and  what 
was  a  Chinago,  anyway  ?  Besides,  it  might  not 
be  a  mistake.  He  did  not  know  what  went 
on  in  the  minds  of  his  superiors.  They  knew 
their  business  best.  Who  was  he  to  do  their 
thinking  for  them  ?  Once,  in  the  long  ago,  he 


176  THE   CHINAGO 

had  attempted  to  think  for  them,  and  the  ser 
geant  had  said :  "  Cruchot,  you  are  a  fool !  The 
quicker  you  know  that,  the  better  you  will  get  on. 
You  are  not  to  think;  you  are  to  obey  and  leave 
thinking  to  your  betters."  He  smarted  under 
the  recollection.  Also,  if  he  turned  back  to 
Papeete,  he  would  delay  the  execution  at 
Atimaono,  and  if  he  were  wrong  in  turning 
back,  he  would  get  a  reprimand  from  the  ser 
geant  who  was  waiting  for  the  prisoner.  And, 
furthermore,  he  would  get  a  reprimand  at 
Papeete  as  well. 

He  touched  the  mules  with  the  whip  and 
drove  on.  He  looked  at  his  watch.  He  would 
be  half  an  hour  late  as  it  was,  and  the  sergeant 
was  bound  to  be  angry.  He  put  the  mules  into 
a  faster  trot.  The  more  Ah  Cho  persisted  in 
explaining  the  mistake,  the  more  stubborn 
Cruchot  became.  The  knowledge  that  he  had 
the  wrong  man  did  not  make  his  temper  better. 
The  knowledge  that  it  was  through  no  mistake 
of  his  confirmed  him  in  the  belief  that  the  wrong 
he  was  doing  was  the  right.  And,  rather  than 
incur  the  displeasure  of  the  sergeant,  he  would 


THE   CHINAGO  177 

willingly  have  assisted  a  dozen  wrong  Chinagos 
to  their  doom. 

As  for  Ah  Cho,  after  the  gendarme  had  struck 
him  over  the  head  with  the  butt  of  the  whip  and 
commanded  him  in  a  loud  voice  to  shut  up,  there 
remained  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  shut  up. 
The  long  ride  continued  in  silence.  Ah  Cho 
pondered  the  strange  ways  of  the  foreign  devils. 
There  was  no  explaining  them.  What  they 
were  doing  with  him  was  of  a  piece  with  every 
thing  they  did.  First  they  found  guilty  five 
innocent  men,  and  next  they  cut  off  the  head  of 
the  man  that  even  they,  in  their  benighted  ig 
norance,  had  deemed  meritorious  of  no  more 
than  twenty  years'  imprisonment.  And  there 
was  nothing  he  could  do.  He  could  only  sit  idly 
and  take  what  these  lords  of  life  measured  out 
to  him.  Once,  he  got  in  a  panic,  and  the  sweat 
upon  his  body  turned  cold;  but  he  fought  his 
way  out  of  it.  He  endeavored  to  resign  himself 
to  his  fate  by  remembering  and  repeating  cer 
tain  passages  from  the  "Yin  Chih  Wen"  ("The 
Tract  of  the  Quiet  Way");  but,  instead,  he 
kept  seeing  his  dream-garden  of  meditation  and 


178  THE   CHINAGO 

repose.  This  bothered  him,  until  he  abandoned 
himself  to  the  dream  and  sat  in  his  garden  listen 
ing  to  the  tinkling  of  the  wind-bells  in  the  sev 
eral  trees.  And  lo !  sitting  thus,  in  the  dream, 
he  was  able  to  remember  and  repeat  the  passages 
from  "The  Tract  of  the  Quiet  Way." 

So  the  time  passed  nicely  until  Atimaono  was 
reached  and  the  mules  trotted  up  to  the  foot  of 
the  scaffold,  in  the  shade  of  which  stood  the  im 
patient  sergeant.  Ah  Cho  was  hurried  up  the 
ladder  of  the  scaffold.  Beneath  him  on  one 
side  he  saw  assembled  all  the  coolies  of  the  plan 
tation.  Schemmer  had  decided  that  the  event 
would  be  a  good  object-lesson,  and  so  had  called 
in  the  coolies  from  the  fields  and  compelled 
them  to  be  present.  As  they  caught  sight  of  Ah 
Cho  they  gabbled  among  themselves  in  low 
voices.  They  saw  the  mistake;  but  they  kept 
it  to  themselves.  The  inexplicable  white  devils 
had  doubtlessly  changed  their  minds.  Instead 
of  taking  the  life  of  one  innocent  man,  they  were 
taking  the  life  of  another  innocent  man.  Ah 
Chow  or  Ah  Cho  —  what  did  it  matter  which  ? 
They  could  never  understand  the  white  dogs 


THE  CHINAGO  179 

any  more  than  could  the  white  dogs  understand 
them.  Ah  Cho  was  going  to  have  his  head 
cut  off,  but  they,  when  their  two  remaining 
years  of  servitude  were  up,  were  going  back  to 
China. 

Schemmer  had  made  the  guillotine  himself. 
He  was  a  handy  man,  and  though  he  had  never 
seen  a  guillotine,  the  French  officials  had  ex 
plained  the  principle  to  him.  It  was  on  his  sug 
gestion  that  they  had  ordered  the  execution 
to  take  place  at  Atimaono  instead  of  at  Papeete. 
The  scene  of  the  crime,  Schemmer  had  argued, 
was  the  best  possible  place  for  the  punishment, 
and,  in  addition,  it  would  have  a  salutary  in 
fluence  upon  the  half-thousand  Chinagos  on  the 
plantation.  Schemmer  had  also  volunteered  to 
act  as  executioner,  and  in  that  capacity  he  was 
now  on  the  scaffold,  experimenting  with  the 
instrument  he  had  made.  A  banana  tree,  of 
the  size  and  consistency  of  a  man's  neck,  lay 
under  the  guillotine.  Ah  Cho  watched  with 
fascinated  eyes.  The  German,  turning  a  small 
crank,  hoisted  the  blade  to  the  top  of  the  little 
derrick  he  had  rigged.  A  jerk  on  a  stout 


180  THE   CHINAGO 

piece  of  cord  loosed  the  blade  and  it  dropped 
with  a  flash,  neatly  severing  the  banana  trunk. 

"  How  does  it  work  ? "  The  sergeant,  com 
ing  out  on  top  the  scaffold,  had  asked  the  ques 
tion. 

"Beautifully,"  was  Schemmer's  exultant 
answer.  "Let  me  show  you." 

Again  he  turned  the  crank  that  hoisted  the 
blade,  jerked  the  cord,  and  sent  the  blade  crash 
ing  down  on  the  soft  tree.  But  this  time  it  went 
no  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  way  through. 

The  sergeant  scowled.  "That  will  not 
serve,"  he  said. 

Schemmer  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  fore 
head.  "What  it  needs  is  more  weight,"  he 
announced.  Walking  up  to  the  edge  of  the 
scaffold,  he  called  his  orders  to  the  blacksmith 
for  a  twenty-five-pound  piece  of  iron.  As  he 
stooped  over  to  attach  the  iron  to  the  broad  top 
of  the  blade,  Ah  Cho  glanced  at  the  sergeant  and 
saw  his  opportunity. 

"The  honorable  judge  said  that  Ah  Chow 
was  to  have  his  head  cut  off,"  he  began. 

The  sergeant  nodded  impatiently.     He  was 


THE   CHINAGO  181 

thinking  of  the  fifteen-mile  ride  before  him  that 
afternoon,  to  the  windward  side  of  the  island, 
and  of  Berthe,  the  pretty  half-caste  daughter 
of  Lafiere,  the  pearl-trader,  who  was  waiting 
for  him  at  the  end  of  it. 

"Well,  I  am  not  Ah  Chow.  I  am  Ah  Cho. 
The  honorable  jailer  has  made  a  mistake.  Ah 
Chow  is  a  tall  man,  and  you  see  I  am  short." 

The  sergeant  looked  at  him  hastily  and  saw 
the  mistake.  "Schemmer!"  he  called,  im 
peratively.  "Come  here." 

The  German  grunted,  but  remained  bent 
over  his  task  till  the  chunk  of  iron  was  lashed 
to  his  satisfaction.  "Is  your  Chinago  ready?" 
he  demanded. 

"Look  at  him,"  was  the  answer.  "Is  he 
the  Chinago?" 

Schemmer  was  surprised.  He  swore  tersely 
for  a  few  seconds,  and  looked  regretfully  across 
at  the  thing  he  had  made  with  his  own  hands 
and  which  he  was  eager  to  see  work.  "Look 
here,"  he  said  finally,  "we  can't  postpone  this 
affair.  I've  lost  three  hours*  work  already  out 
of  those  five  hundred  Chinagos.  I  can't  af- 


182  THE   CHINAGO 

ford  to  lose  it  all  over  again  for  the  right  maa 
Let's  put  the  performance  through  just  the 
same.  It  is  only  a  Chinago." 

The  sergeant  remembered  the  long  ride  be 
fore  him,  and  the  pearl-trader's  daughter,  and 
debated  with  himself. 

"They  will  blame  it  on  Cruchot  —  if  it  is 
discovered,"  the  German  urged.  "But  there's 
litfite  chance  of  its  being  discovered.  Ah  Chow 
won't  give  it  away,  at  any  rate." 

"The  blame  won't  lie  with  Cruchot,  anyway," 
the  sergeant  said.  "It  must  have  been  the 
jailer's  mistake." 

"Then  let's  go  on  with  it.  They  can't 
blame  us.  Who  can  tell  one  Chinago  from 
another  ?  We  can  say  that  we  merely  carried 
out  instructions  with  the  Chinago  that  was 
turned  over  to  us.  Besides,  I  really  can't  take 
all  those  coolies  a  second  time  away  from  their 
labor." 

They  spoke  in  French,  and  Ah  Cho,  who  did 
not  understand  a  word  of  it,  nevertheless  knew 
that  they  were  determining  his  destiny.  He 
knew,  also,  that  the  decision  rested  with  the 


THE   CHINAGO  183 

sergeant,    and    he    hung    upon    that    official's 
lips. 

"All  right,"  announced  the  sergeant.  "Go 
ahead  with  it.  He  is  only  a  Chinago." 

"I'm  going  to  try  it  once  more,  just  to  make 
sure."  Schemmer  moved  the  banana  trunk 
forward  under  the  knife,  which  he  had  hoisted 
to  the  top  of  the  derrick. 

Ah  Cho  tried  to  remember  maxims  from 
"The  Tract  of  the  Quiet  Way."  "Live  in 
concord,"  came  to  him;  but  it  was  not  appli 
cable.  He  was  not  going  to  live.  He  was 
about  to  die.  No,  that  would  not  do.  "For 
give  malice"  — yes,  but  there  was  no  malice  to 
forgive.  Schemmer  and  the  rest  were  doing 
this  thing  without  malice.  It  was  to  them 
merely  a  piece  of  work  that  had  to  be  done, 
just  as  clearing  the  jungle,  ditching  the  water, 
and  planting  cotton  were  pieces  of  work  that 
had  to  be  done.  Schemmer  jerked  the  cord, 
and  Ah  Cho  forgot  "The  Tract  of  the  Quiet 
Way."  The  knife  shot  down  with  a  thud, 
making  a  clean  slice  of  the  tree. 

"Beautiful!"  exclaimed  the  sergeant,  paus- 


184  THE   CHINAGO 

ing  in  the  act  of  lighting  a  cigarette.  "Beauti 
ful,  my  friend." 

Schemmer  was  pleased  at  the  praise. 

"Come  on,  Ah  Chow,"  he  said,  in  the  Tahi- 
tian  tongue. 

"But  I  am  not  Ah  Chow—"  Ah  Cho  began. 

"Shut  up!"  was  the  answer.  "If  you  open 
your  mouth  again,  I'll  break  your  head." 

The  overseer  threatened  him  with  a  clenched 
fist,  and  he  remained  silent.  What  was  the 
good  of  protesting  ?  Those  foreign  devils  al 
ways  had  their  way.  He  allowed  himself  to  be 
lashed  to  the  vertical  board  that  was  the  size 
of  his  body.  Schemmer  drew  the  buckles 
tight  —  so  tight  that  the  straps  cut  into  his 
flesh  and  hurt.  But  he  did  not  complain. 
The  hurt  would  not  last  long.  He  felt  the 
board  tilting  over  in  the  air  toward  the  hori 
zontal,  and  closed  his  eyes.  And  in  that  mo 
ment  he  caught  a  last  glimpse  of  his  garden  of 
meditation  and  repose.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
he  sat  in  the  garden.  A  cool  wind  was  blowing, 
and  the  bells  in  the  several  trees  were  tinkling 
softly.  Also,  birds  were  making  sleepy  noises, 


THE   CHINAGO  185 

and  from  beyond  the  high  wall  came  the  sub 
dued  sound  of  village  life. 

Then  he  was  aware  that  the  board  had  come 
to  rest,  and  from  muscular  pressures  and  ten 
sions  he  knew  that  he  was  lying  on  his  back. 
He  opened  his  eyes.  Straight  above  him  he  saw 
the  suspended  knife  blazing  in  the  sunshine. 
He  saw  the  weight  which  had  been  added,  and 
noted  that  one  of  Schemmer's  knots  had  slipped. 
Then  he  heard  the  sergeant's  voice  in  sharp 
command.  Ah  Cho  closed  his  eyes  hastily. 
He  did  not  want  to  see  that  knife  descend. 
But  he  felt  it  —  for  one  great  fleeting  instant. 
And  in  that  instant  he  remembered  Cruchot  and 
what  Cruchot  had  said.  But  Cruchot  was 
wrong.  The  knife  did  not  tickle.  That  much 
he  knew  before  he  ceased  to  know. 


MAKE  WESTING 


MAKE  WESTING 

Whatever  you  do,  make  westing!  make  westing! 

—  Sailing  directions  for  Cape  Horn. 

FOR  seven  weeks  the  Mary  Rogers  had 
been  between  50°  south  in  the  Atlantic 
and  50°  south  in  the  Pacific,  which 
meant  that  for  seven  weeks  she  had  been  strug 
gling  to  round  Cape  Horn.  For  seven  weeks 
she  had  been  either  in  dirt,  or  close  to  dirt,  save 
once,  and  then,  following  upon  six  days  of  ex 
cessive  dirt,  which  she  had  ridden  out  under 
the  shelter  of  the  redoubtable  Terra  Del  Fuego 
coast,  she  had  almost  gone  ashore  during  a 
heavy  swell  in  the  dead  calm  that  had  suddenly 
fallen.  For  seven  weeks  she  had  wrestled  with 
the  Cape  Horn  graybeards,  and  in  return  been 
buffeted  and  smashed  by  them.  She  was  a 
wooden  ship,  and  her  ceaseless  straining  had 
opened  her  seams,  so  that  twice  a  day  the  watch 
took  its  turn  at  the  pumps. 

The  Mary  Rogers  was  strained,  the  crew  was 
189 


igo  MAKE  WESTING 

strained,  and  big  Dan  Cullen,  master,  was  like 
wise  strained.  Perhaps  he  was  strained  most 
of  all,  for  upon  him  rested  the  responsibility  of 
that  titanic  struggle.  He  slept  most  of  the 
time  in  his  clothes,  though  he  rarely  slept.  He 
haunted  the  deck  at  night,  a  great,  burly,  ro 
bust  ghost,  black  with  the  sunburn  of  thirty 
years  of  sea  and  hairy  as  an  orang-utan.  He, 
in  turn,  was  haunted  by  one  thought  of  action, 
a  sailing  direction  for  the  Horn :  Whatever  you 
do,  make  westing!  make  westing!  It  was  an 
obsession.  He  thought  of  nothing  else,  except, 
at  times,  to  blaspheme  God  for  sending  such 
bitter  weather. 

Make  westing!  He  hugged  the  Horn,  and 
a  dozen  times  lay  hove  to  with  the  iron  Cape 
bearing  east-by-north,  or  north-north-east,  a 
score  of  miles  away.  And  each  time  the  eternal 
west  wind  smote  him  back  and  he  made  easting. 
He  fought  gale  after  gale,  south  to  64°,  inside 
the  antarctic  drift-ice,  and  pledged  his  immortal 
soul  to  the  Powers  of  Darkness  for  a  bit  of  west 
ing,  for  a  slant  to  take  him  around.  And  he 
made  easting.  In  despair,  he  had  tried  to  make 


MAKE  WESTING  191 

the  passage  through  the  Straits  of  Le  Maire. 
Halfway  through,  the  wind  hauled  to  the 
northward  of  northwest,  the  glass  dropped  to 
28.88,  and  he  turned  and  ran  before  a  gale  of 
cyclonic  fury,  missing,  by  a  hair's-breadth,  piling 
up  the  Mary  Rogers  on  the  black-toothed 
rocks.  Twice  he  had  made  west  to  the  Diego 
Ramirez  Rocks,  one  of  the  times  saved  between 
two  snow-squalls  by  sighting  the  gravestones  of 
ships  a  quarter  of  a  mile  dead  ahead. 

Blow !  Captain  Dan  Cullen  instanced  all  his 
thirty  years  at  sea  to  prove  that  never  had  it 
blown  so  before.  The  Mary  Rogers  was  hove 
to  at  the  time  he  gave  the  evidence,  and,  to  clinch 
it,  inside  half  an  hour  the  Mary  Rogers  was  hove 
down  to  the  hatches.  Her  new  maintopsail 
and  brand  new  spencer  were  blown  away  like 
tissue  paper;  and  five  sails,  furled  and  fast 
under  double  gaskets,  were  blown  loose  and 
stripped  from  the  yards.  And  before  morning 
the  Mary  Rogers  was  hove  down  twice  again, 
and  holes  were  knocked  in  her  bulwarks  to 
ease  her  decks  from  the  weight  of  ocean  that 
pressed  her  down. 


192  MAKE   WESTING 

On  an  average  of  once  a  week  Captain  Dan 
Cullen  caught  glimpses  of  the  sun.  Once, 
for  ten  minutes,  the  sun  shone  at  midday,  and 
ten  minutes  afterward  a  new  gale  was  piping 
up,  both  watches  were  shortening  sail,  and  all 
was  buried  in  the  obscurity  of  a  driving  snow- 
squall.  For  a  fortnight,  once,  Captain  Dan 
Cullen  was  without  a  meridian  or  a  chronometer 
sight.  Rarely  did  he  know  his  position  within 
half  of  a  degree,  except  when  in  sight  of  land ; 
for  sun  and  stars  remained  hidden  behind  the 
sky,  and  it  was  so  gloomy  that  even  at  the  best 
the  horizons  were  poor  for  accurate  observa 
tions.  A  gray  gloom  shrouded  the  world. 
The  clouds  were  gray;  the  great  driving  seas 
were  leaden  gray;  the  smoking  crests  were  a 
gray  churning;  even  the  occasional  albatrosses 
were  gray,  while  the  snow-flurries  were  not 
white,  but  gray,  under  the  sombre  pall  of  the 
heavens. 

Life  on  board  the  Mary  Rogers  was  gray, — • 
gray  and  gloomy.  The  faces  of  the  sailors 
were  blue-gray;  they  were  afflicted  with  sea- 
cuts  and  sea-boils,  and  suffered  exquisitely. 


MAKE  WESTING  193 

They  were  shadows  of  men.  For  seven  weeks, 
in  the  forecastle  or  on  deck,  they  had  not  known 
what  it  was  to  be  dry.  They  had  forgotten 
what  it  was  to  sleep  out  a  watch,  and  all  watches 
it  was,  "All  hands  on  deck!"  They  caught 
snatches  of  agonized  sleep,  and  they  slept  in 
their  oilskins  ready  for  the  everlasting  call.  Scr 
weak  and  worn  were  they  that  it  took  both 
watches  to  do  the  work  of  one.  That  was  why 
both  watches  were  on  deck  so  much  of  the  time. 
And  no  shadow  of  a  man  could  shirk  duty* 
Nothing  less  than  a  broken  leg  could  enable  a 
man  to  knock  off  work;  and  there  were  twa 
such,  who  had  been  mauled  and  pulped  by  the 
seas  that  broke  aboard. 

One  other  man  who  was  the  shadow  of  a  man 
was  George  Dorety.  He  was  the  only  pay 
senger  on  board,  a  friend  of  the  firm,  and  he  had 
elected  to  make  the  voyage  for  his  health.  But 
seven  weeks  of  Cape  Horn  had  not  bettered 
his  health.  He  gasped  and  panted  in  his 
bunk  through  the  long,  heaving  nights;  and 
when  on  deck  he  was  so  bundled  up  for  warmth 
that  he  resembled  a  peripatetic  old-clothes  shop. 


,94  MAKE   WESTING 

At  midday,  eating  at  the  cabin  table  in  a  gloom 
so  deep  that  the  swinging  sea-lamps  burned 
always,  he  looked  as  blue-gray  as  the  sickest, 
saddest  man  for'ard.  Nor  did  gazing  across 
the  table  at  Captain  Dan  Cullen  have  any  cheer 
ing  effect  upon  him.  Captain  Cullen  chewed 
and  scowled  and  kept  silent.  The  scowls  were 
for  God,  and  with  every  chew  he  reiterated  the 
sole  thought  of  his  existence,  which  was  make 
westing.  He  was  a  big,  hairy  brute,  and  the 
sight  of  him  was  not  stimulating  to  the  other's 
appetite.  He  looked  upon  George  Dorety  as  a 
Jonah,  and  told  him  so,  once  each  meal,  sav 
agely  transferring  the  scowl  from  God  to  the 
passenger  and  back  again. 

Nor  did  the  mate  prove  a  first  aid  to  a  lan 
guid  appetite.  Joshua  Higgins  by  name,  a  sea 
man  by  profession  and  pull,  but  a  pot-wolloper 
by  capacity,  he  was  a  loose-jointed,  sniffling 
creature,  heartless  and  selfish  and  cowardly, 
without  a  soul,  in  fear  of  his  life  of  Dan  Cullen, 
and  a  bully  over  the  sailors,  who  knew  that 
behind  the  mate  was  Captain  Cullen,  the 
lawgiver  and  compeller,  the  driver  and  the  de- 


MAKE  WESTING  195 

stroyer,  the  incarnation  of  a  dozen  bucko  mates. 
In  that  v/ild  weather  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
earth,  Joshua  Higgins  ceased  washing.  His 
grimy  face  usually  robbed  George  Dorety  of  what 
little  appetite  he  managed  to  accumulate.  Or 
dinarily  this  lavatarial  dereliction  would  have 
caught  Captain  Cullen's  eye  and  vocabulary, 
but  in  the  present  his  mind  was  filled  with 
making  westing,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
things  not  contributory  thereto.  Whether  the 
mate's  face  was  clean  or  dirty  had  no  bear 
ing  upon  westing.  Later  on,  when  50°  south  in 
the  Pacific  had  been  reached,  Joshua  Higgins 
would  wash  his  face  very  abruptly.  In  the 
meantime,  at  the  cabin  table,  where  gray  twi 
light  alternated  with  lamplight  while  the  lamps 
were  being  filled,  George  Dorety  sat  between 
the  two  men,  one  a  tiger  and  the  other  a 
hyena,  and  wondered  why  God  had  made 
them.  The  second  mate,  Matthew  Turner, 
was  a  true  sailor  and  a  man,  but  George 
Dorety  did  not  have  the  solace  of  his  com 
pany,  for  he  ate  by  himself,  solitary,  when 
they  had  finished. 


196  MAKE   WESTING 

On  Saturday  morning,  July  24,  George  Dorety 
awoke  to  a  feeling  of  life  and  headlong  move 
ment.  On  deck  he  found  the  Mary  Rogers 
running  off  before  a  howling  southeaster. 
Nothing  was  set  but  the  lower  topsails  and  the 
foresail.  It  was  all  she  could  stand,  yet  she 
was  making  fourteen  knots,  as  Mr.  Turner 
shouted  in  Dorety's  ear  when  he  came  on  deck. 
And  it  was  all  westing.  She  was  going  around 
the  Horn  at  last  ...  if  the  wind  held.  Mr. 
Turner  looked  happy.  The  end  of  the  struggle 
was  in  sight.  But  Captain  Cullen  did  not  look 
happy.  He  scowled  at  Dorety  in  passing. 
Captain  Cullen  did  not  want  God  to  know  that 
he  was  pleased  with  that  wind.  He  had  a  con 
ception  of  a  malicious  God,  and  believed  in  his 
secret  soul  that  if  God  knew  it  was  a  desirable 
wind,  God  would  promptly  efface  it  and  send  a 
snorter  from  the  west.  So  he  walked  softly 
before  God,  smothering  his  joy  down  under 
scowls  and  muttered  curses,  and,  so,  fooling 
God,  for  God  was  the  only  thing  in  the  universe 
of  which  Dan  Cullen  was  afraid. 

All  Saturday  and  Saturday  night  the  Mary 


MAKE  WESTING  197 

Rogers  raced  her  westing.  Persistently  she  logged 
her  fourteen  knots,  so  that  by  Sunday  morning 
she  had  covered  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles. 
If  the  wind  held,  she  would  make  around.  If 
it  failed,  and  the  snorter  came  from  anywhere 
between  southwest  and  north,  back  the  Mary 
Rogers  would  be  hurled  and  be  no  better  off 
than  she  had  been  seven  weeks  before.  And 
on  Sunday  morning  the  wind  was  failing.  The 
big  sea  was  going  down  and  running  smooth. 
Both  watches  were  on  deck  setting  sail  after 
sail  as  fast  as  the  ship  could  stand  it.  And  now 
Captain  Cullen  went  around  brazenly  before 
God,  smoking  a  big  cigar,  smiling  jubilantly, 
as  if  the  failing  wind  delighted  him,  while  down 
underneath  he  was  raging  against  God  for  tak 
ing  the  life  out  of  the  blessed  wind.  Make 
westing!  So  he  would,  if  God  would  only 
leave  him  alone.  Secretly,  he  pledged  himself 
anew  to  the  Powers  of  Darkness,  if  they  would 
let  him  make  westing.  He  pledged  himself  so 
easily  because  he  did  not  believe  in  the  Powers 
of  Darkness.  He  really  believed  only  in  God, 
though  he  did  not  know  it.  And  in  his  inverted 


198  MAKE  WESTING 

theology  God  was  really  the  Prince  of  Dark* 
ness.  Captain  Cullen  was  a  devil-worshipper, 
but  he  called  the  devil  by  another  name,  that 
was  all. 

At  midday,  after  calling  eight  bells,  Captain 
Cullen  ordered  the  royals  on.  The  men  went 
aloft  faster  than  they  had  gone  in  weeks.  Not 
alone  were  they  nimble  because  of  the  westing, 
but  a  benignant  sun  was  shining  down  and 
limbering  their  stiff  bodies.  George  Dorety" 
stood  aft,  near  Captain  Cullen,  less  bundled  in 
clothes  than  usual,  soaking  in  the  grateful 
warmth  as  he  watched  the  scene.  Swiftly  and 
abruptly  the  incident  occurred.  There  was  a 
cry  from  the  foreroyal-yard  of  "Man  over 
board  !"  Somebody  threw  a  life  buoy  over  the 
side,  and  at  the  same  instant  the  second  mate's 
voice  came  aft,  ringing  and  peremptory:  — 

"  Hard  down  your  helm  ! " 

The  man  at  the  wheel  never  moved  a  spoke. 
He  knew  better,  for  Captain  Dan  Cullen  was 
standing  alongside  of  him.  He  wanted  to 
move  a  spoke,  to  move  all  the  spokes,  to  grind 
the  wheel  down,  hard  down,  for  his  comrade 


MAKE   WESTING  199 

drowning  in  the  sea.  He  glanced  at  Captain 
Dan  Cullen,  and  Captain  Dan  Cullen  gave  no 
sign. 

"DownJ  Hard  down!"  the  second  mate 
roared,  as  he  sprang  aft. 

But  he  ceased  springing  and  commanding, 
and  stood  still,  when  he  saw  Dan  Cullen  by 
the  wheel.  And  big  Dan  Cullen  puffed  at  his 
cigar  and  said  nothing.  Astern,  and  going 
astern  fast,  could  be  seen  the  sailor.  He  had 
caught  the  life  buoy  and  was  clinging  to  it.  No 
body  spoke.  Nobody  moved.  The  men  aloft 
clung  to  the  royal  yards  and  watched  with  ter 
ror-stricken  faces.  And  the  Mary  Rogers  raced 
on,  making  her  westing.  A  long,  silent  minute 
passed. 

"Who  was  it?"  Captain  Cullen  demanded. 

"Mops,  sir,"  eagerly  answered  the  sailor  at 
the  wheel. 

Mops  topped  a  wave  astern  and  disappeared 
temporarily  in  the  trough.  It  was  a  large 
wave,  but  it  was  no  graybeard.  A  small  boat 
could  live  easily  in  such  a  sea,  and  in  such  a  sea 
the  Mary  Rogers  could  easily  come  to.  But 


200  MAKE  WESTING 

she  could  not  come  to  and  make  westing  at  the 
same  time. 

For  the  first  time  in  all  his  years,  George 
Dorety  was  seeing  a  real  drama  of  life  and  death 
—  a  sordid  little  drama  in  which  the  scales 
balanced  an  unknown  sailor  named  Mops 
against  a  few  miles  of  longitude.  At  first  he 
had  watched  the  man  astern,  but  now  he 
watched  big  Dan  Cullen,  hairy  and  black, 
vested  with  power  of  life  and  death,  smoking  a 
cigar. 

Captain  Dan  Cullen  smoked  another  long, 
silent  minute.  Then  he  removed  the  cigar 
from  his  mouth.  He  glanced  aloft  at  the 
spars  of  the  Mary  Rogers,  and  overside  at 
the  sea. 

"Sheet  home  the  royals  I"  he  cried. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  they  sat  at  table,  in 
the  cabin,  with  food  served  before  them.  On 
one  side  of  George  Dorety  sat  Dan  Cullen,  the 
tiger,  on  the  other  side,  Joshua  Higgins,  the 
hyena.  Nobody  spoke.  On  deck  the  men  were 
sheeting  home  the  skysails.  George  Dorety 
could  hear  their  cries,  while  a  persistent  vision 


MAKE  WESTING        ,  201 

haunted  him  of  a  man  called  Mops,  alive  and 
well,  clinging  to  a  life  buoy  miles  astern  in  that 
lonely  ocean.  He  glanced  at  Captain  Cullen, 
and  experienced  a  feeling  of  nausea,  for  the 
man  was  eating  his  food  with  relish,  almost 
bolting  it. 

"Captain  Cullen,"  Dorety  said,  "you  are  in 
command  of  this  ship,  and  it  is  not  proper  for 
me  to  comment  now  upon  what  you  do.  But 
I  wish  to  say  one  thing.  There  is  a  hereafter, 
and  yours  will  be  a  hot  one." 

Captain  Cullen  did  not  even  scowl.  In  his 
voice  was  regret  as  he  said :  — 

"It  was  blowing  a  living  gale.  It  was  im 
possible  to  save  the  man." 

"He  fell  from  the  royal-yard,"  Dorety  cried 
hotly.  "You  were  setting  the  royals  at  the 
time.  Fifteen  minutes  afterward  you  were 
setting  the  skysails." 

"It  was  a  living  gale,  wasn't  it,  Mr.  Hig- 
gins  ? "  Captain  Cullen  said,  turning  to  the 
mate. 

"If  you'd  brought  her  to,  it'd  have  taken 
the  sticks  out  of  her,"  was  the  mate's  answer. 


202  MAKE  WESTING 

"You  did  the  proper  thing,  Captain  Cullen. 
The  man  hadn't  a  ghost  of  a  show." 

George  Dorety  made  no  answer,  and  to  the 
meal's  end  no  one  spoke.  After  that,  Dorety 
had  his  meals  served  in  his  stateroom.  Cap 
tain  Cullen  scowled  at  him  no  longer,  though 
no  speech  was  exchanged  between  them,  while 
the  Mary  Rogers  sped  north  toward  warmer  lati 
tudes.  At  the  end  of  the  week,  Dan  Cullen 
cornered  Dorety  on  deck. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  when  we  get  to 
'Frisco  ? "  he  demanded  bluntly. 

"  I  am  going  to  swear  out  a  warrant  for  your 
arrest,"  Dorety  answered  quietly.  "  I  am  going 
to  charge  you  with  murder,  and  I  am  going  to 
see  you  hanged  for  it."  » 

"You're  almighty  sure  of  yourself,"  Captain 
Cullen  sneered,  turning  on  his  heel. 

A  second  week  passed,  and  one  morning  found 
George  Dorety  standing  in  the  coach-house  com- 
panionway  at  the  for'ard  end  of  the  long  poop, 
taking  his  first  gaze  around  the  deck.  The 
Mary  Rogers  was  reaching  full-and-by,  in  a  stiff 
breeze.  Every  sail  was  set  and  drawing,  in- 


MAKE  WESTING  203 

eluding  the  staysails.  Captain  Cullen  strolled 
for'ard  along  the  poop.  He  strolled  care 
lessly,  glancing  at  the  passenger  out  of  the  cor 
ner  of  his  eye.  Dorety  was  looking  the  other 
way,  standing  with  head  and  shoulders  outside 
the  companionway,  and  only  the  back  of  his 
head  was  to  be  seen.  Captain  Cullen,  with 
swift  eye,  embraced  the  mainstaysail-block  and 
the  head  and  estimated  the  distance.  He 
glanced  about  him.  Nobody  was  looking. 
Aft,  Joshua  Higgins,  pacing  up  and  down,  had 
just  turned  his  back  and  was  going  the  other 
way.  Captain  Cullen  bent  over  suddenly  and 
cast  the  staysail-sheet  off  from  its  pin.  The 
heavy  block  hurtled  through  the  air,  smashing 
Dorety's  head  like  an  egg-shell  and  hurtling  on 
and  back  and  forth  as  the  staysail  whipped  and 
slatted  in  the  wind.  Joshua  Higgins  turned 
around  to  see  what  had  carried  away,  and  met 
the  full  blast  of  the  vilest  portion  of  Captain 
Cullen's  profanity. 

"I  made  the  sheet  fast  myself,"  whimpered 
the  mate  in  the  first  lull,  "with  an  extra  turn 
to  make  sure.  I  remember  it  distinctly." 


204  MAKE  WESTING 

"Made  fast?"  the  Captain  snarled  back, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  watch  as  it  struggled  to 
capture  the  flying  sail  before  it  tore  to  ribbons. 
"You  couldn't  make  your  grandmother  fast, 
you  useless  hell's  scullion.  If  you  made  that 
sheet  fast  with  an  extra  turn,  why  in  hell  didn't 
it  stay  fast?  That's  what  I  want  to  know. 
Why  in  hell  didn't  it  stay  fast?" 

The  mate  whined  inarticulately. 

"Oh,  shut  up!"  was  the  final  word  of  Cap 
tain  Cullen. 

Half  an  hour  later  he  was  as  surprised  as 
any  when  the  body  of  George  Dorety  was  found 
inside  the  companionway  on  the  floor.  In 
the  afternoon,  alone  in  his  room,  he  doctored  up 
the  log. 

"Ordinary  seaman,  Karl  Brun"  he  wrote, 
"lost  overboard  from  foreroyal-yard  in  a  gale 
of  wind.  Was  running  at  the  time,  and  for 
the  safety  of  the  ship  did  not  dare  come  up  to 
the  wind.  Nor  could  a  boat  have  lived  in  the 
sea  that  was  running" 

On  another  page,  he  wrote:  — 


MAKE  WESTING  205 

"Had  often  warned  Mr.  Dorety  about  the 
danger  he  ran  because  of  his  carelessness  on 
deck.  I  told  him,  once,  that  some  day  he  would 
get  his  head  knocked  off  by  a  block.  A  care- 
lessly  fastened  mainstaysail  sheet  was  the 
cause  of  the  accident,  which  was  deeply  to  be 
regretted  because  Mr.  Dorety  was  a  favorite 
with  all  of  us." 

Captain  Dan  Cullen  read  over  his  literary 
effort  with  admiration,  blotted  the  page,  and 
closed  the  log.  He  lighted  a  cigar  and  stared 
before  him.  He  felt  the  Mary  Rogers  lift,  and 
heel,  and  surge  along,  and  knew  that  she  was 
making  nine  knots.  A  smile  of  satisfaction 
slowly  dawned  on  his  black  and  hairy  face. 
Well,  anyway,  he  had  made  his  westing  and 
fooled  God. 


SEMPER   IDEM 


SEMPER  IDEM 

DOCTOR  Bicknell  was  in  a  remarkably 
gracious  mood.  Through  a  minor  ac 
cident,  a  slight  bit  of  carelessness,  that 
was  all,  a  man  who  might  have  pulled  through 
had  died  the  preceding  night.  Though  it 
had  been  only  a  sailorman,  one  of  the  innumer 
able  unwashed,  the  steward  of  the  receiving 
hospital  had  been  on  the  anxious  seat  all  the 
morning.  It  was  not  that  the  man  had  died 
that  gave  him  discomfort,  he  knew  the  Doctor 
too  well  for  that,  but  his  distress  lay  in  the 
fact  that  the  operation  had  been  done  so  well. 
One  of  the  most  delicate  in  surgery,  it  had  been 
as  successful  as  it  was  clever  and  audacious. 
All  had  then  depended  upon  the  treatment, 
the  nurses,  the  steward.  And  the  man  had 
died.  Nothing  much,  a  bit  of  carelessness, 
yet  enough  to  bring  the  professional  wrath  of 
Doctor  Bicknell  about  his  ears  and  to  perturb 
p  209 


210  SEMPER   IDEM 

the  working  of  the  staff  and  nurses  for  twenty^ 
four  hours  to  come. 

But,  as  already  stated,  the  Doctor  was  in  a 
remarkably  gracious  mood.  When  informed 
by  the  steward,  in  fear  and  trembling,  of  the 
man's  unexpected  take-off,  his  lips  did  not  so 
much  as  form  one  syllable  of  censure;  nay, 
they  were  so  pursed  that  snatches  of  rag-time 
floated  softly  from  them,  to  be  broken  only  by 
a  pleasant  query  after  the  health  of  the  other's 
eldest-born.  The  steward,  deeming  it  impos 
sible  that  he  could  have  caught  the  gist  of  the 
case,  repeated  it. 

"Yes,  yes,"  Doctor  Bicknell  said  impatiently; 
"I  understand.  But  how  about  Semper  Idem  ? 
Is  he  ready  to  leave?" 

"Yes.  They're  helping  him  dress  now," 
the  steward  answered,  passing  on  to  the  round 
of  his  duties,  content  that  peace  still  reigned 
within  the  iodine-saturated  walls. 

It  was  Semper  Idem's  recovery  which  had 
so  fully  compensated  Doctor  Bicknell  for  the 
loss  of  the  sailorman.  Lives  were  to  him 
as  nothing,  the  unpleasant  but  inevitable  in- 


SEMPER   IDEM  an 

cidents  of  the  profession,  but  cases,  ah,  cases 
were  everything.  People  who  knew  him  were 
prone  to  brand  him  a  butcher,  but  his  colleagues 
were  at  one  in  the  belief  that  a  bolder  and  yet 
a  more  capable  man  never  stood  over  the  table. 
He  was  not  an  imaginative  man.  He  did  not 
possess,  and  hence  had  no  tolerance  for,  emo 
tion.  His  nature  was  accurate,  precise,  scien 
tific.  Men  were  to  him  no  more  than  pawns, 
without  individuality  or  personal  value.  But 
as  cases  it  was  different.  The  more  broken 
a  man  was,  the  more  precarious  his  grip  on 
life,  the  greater  his  significance  in  the  eyes  of 
Doctor  Bicknell.  He  would  as  readily  forsake  a 
poet  laureate  suffering  from  a  common  accident 
for  a  nameless,  mangled  vagrant  who  defied 
every  law  of  life  by  refusing  to  die,  as  would 
a  child  forsake  a  Punch  and  Judy  for  a  circus. 
So  it  had  been  in  the  case  of  Semper  Idem. 
The  mystery  of  the  man  had  not  appealed  to 
him,  nor  had  his  silence  and  the  veiled  romance 
which  the  yellow  reporters  had  so  sensationally 
and  so  fruitlessly  exploited  in  divers  Sunday 
editions.  But  Semoer  Idem's  throat  had  been 


212  SEMPER   IDEM 

cut.  That  was  the  point.  That  was  where 
his  interest  had  centred.  Cut  from  ear  to 
ear,  and  not  one  surgeon  in  a  thousand  to 
give  a  snap  of  the  ringers  for  his  chance 
of  recovery.  But,  thanks  to  the  swift  mu 
nicipal  ambulance  service  and  to  Doctor 
Bicknell,  he  had  been  dragged  back  into  the 
world  he  had  sought  to  leave.  The  Doctor's 
co-workers  had  shaken  their  heads  when  the 
case  was  brought  in.  Impossible,  they  said. 
Throat,  windpipe,  jugular,  all  but  actually 
severed,  and  the  loss  of  blood  frightful.  As 
.£  was  such  a  foregone  conclusion,  Doctor 
Bicknell  had  employed  methods  and  done 
things  which  made  them,  even  in  their  profes 
sional  capacities,  to  shudder.  And  lo !  the 
man  had  recovered. 

So,  on  this  morning  that  Semper  Idem  was 
to  leave  the  hospital,  hale  and  hearty,  Doctor 
Bicknell's  geniality  was  in  nowise  disturbed 
by  the  steward's  report,  and  he  proceeded  cheer 
fully  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  a  child's 
body  which  had  been  ground  and  crunched 
beneath  the  wheels  of  an  electric  car. 


SEMPER   IDEM  213 

As  many  will  remember,  the  case  of  Semper 
Idem  aroused  a  vast  deal  of  unseemly  yet 
highly  natural  curiosity.  He  had  been  found 
in  a  slum  lodging,  with  throat  cut  as  aforemen 
tioned,  and  blood  dripping  down  upon  the  in 
mates  of  the  room  below  and  disturbing  their 
festivities.  He  had  evidently  done  the  deed 
standing,  with  head  bowed  forward  that  he 
might  gaze  his  last  upon  a  photograph  which 
stood  on  the  table  propped  against  a  candle 
stick.  It  was  this  attitude  which  had  made  it 
possible  for  Doctor  Bicknell  to  save  him.  So 
terrific  had  been  the  sweep  of  the  razor  that 
had  he  had  his  head  thrown  back,  as  he  should 
have  done  to  have  accomplished  the  act  properly, 
with  his  neck  stretched  and  the  elastic  vascular 
walls  distended,  he  would  have  of  a  certainty 
well  nigh  decapitated  himself. 

At  the  hospital,  during  all  the  time  he  trav 
elled  the  repugnant  road  back  to  life,  not  a 
word  had  left  his  lips.  Nor  could  anything  be 
learned  of  him  by  the  sleuths  detailed  by  the 
chief  of  police.  Nobody  knew  him,  nor  had 
ever  seen  or  heard  of  him  before.  He  was 


214  SEMPER   IDEM 

strictly,  uniquely,  of  the  present.  His  clothes 
and  surroundings  were  those  of  the  lowest 
laborer,  his  hands  the  hands  of  a  gentleman. 
But  not  a  shred  of  writing  was  discovered, 
nothing,  save  in  one  particular,  which  would 
serve  to  indicate  his  past  or  his  position  in  life. 

And  that  one  particular  was  the  photograph. 
If  it  were  at  all  a  likeness,  the  woman  who  gazed 
frankly  out  upon  the  onlooker  from  the  card- 
mount  must  have  been  a  striking  creature  in 
deed.  It  was  an  amateur  production,  for  the 
detectives  were  baffled  in  that  no  professional 
photographer's  signature  or  studio  was  ap 
pended.  Across  a  corner  of  the  mount,  in 
delicate  feminine  tracery,  was  written:  "Sem 
per  idem;  semper  fidelis"  And  she  looked 
it.  As  many  recollect,  it  was  a  face  one 
could  never  forget.  Clever  half-tones,  remark 
ably  like,  were  published  in  all  the  leading 
papers  at  the  time;  but  such  procedure  gave 
rise  to  nothing  but  the  uncontrollable  public 
curiosity  and  interminable  copy  to  the  space- 
writers. 

For  want  of  a  better  name,  the  rescued  suicide 


SEMPER   IDEM  2i5 

was  known  to  the  hospital  attendants,  and 
to  the  world,  as  Semper  Idem.  And  Semper 
Idem  he  remained.  Reporters,  detectives,  and 
nurses  gave  him  up  in  despair.  Not  one  word 
could  he  be  persuaded  to  utter;  yet  the  flitting 
conscious  light  of  his  eyes  showed  that  his  ears 
heard  and  his  brain  grasped  every  question 
put  to  him. 

But  this  mystery  and  romance  played  no 
part  in  Doctor  Bicknell's  interest  when  he 
paused  in  the  office  to  have  a  parting  word 
with  his  patient.  He,  the  Doctor,  had  per 
formed  a  prodigy  in  the  matter  of  this 
man,  done  what  was  virtually  unprecedented 
in  the  annals  of  surgery.  He  did  not  care 
who  or  what  the  man  was,  and  it  was 
highly  improbable  that  he  should  ever  see 
him  again;  but,  like  the  artist  gazing  upon 
a  finished  creation,  he  wished  to  look  for  the 
last  time  upon  the  work  of  his  hand  and 
brain. 

Semper  Idem  still  remained  mute.  He 
seemed  anxious  to  be  gone.  Not  a  word  could 
the  Doctor  extract  from  him,  and  little  the 


216  SEMPER   IDEM 

Doctor  cared.  He  examined  the  throat  of  the 
convalescent  carefully,  idling  over  the  hideous 
scar  with  the  lingering,  half-caressing  fondness 
of  a  parent.  It  was  not  a  particularly  pleasing 
sight.  An  angry  line  circled  the  throat,  —  for 
all  the  world  as  though  the  man  had  just  es 
caped  the  hangman's  noose,  and,  —  disappearing 
below  the  ear  on  either  side,  had  the  appear 
ance  of  completing  the  fiery  periphery  at  the 
nape  of  the  neck. 

Maintaining  his  dogged  silence,  yielding  to 
the  other's  examination  in  much  the  manner 
of  a  leashed  lion,  Semper  Idem  betrayed  only 
his  desire  to  drop  from  out  of  the  public 
eye. 

"Well,  I'll  not  keep  you,"  Doctor  Bicknell 
finally  said,  laying  a  hand  on  the  man's  shoulder 
and  stealing  a  last  glance  at  his  own  handiwork. 
"But  let  me  give  you  a  bit  of  advice.  Next 
time  you  try  it  on,  hold  your  chin  up,  so.  Don't 
snuggle  it  down  and  butcher  yourself  like  a 
cow.  Neatness  and  despatch,  you  know. 
Neatness  and  despatch." 

Semper  Idem's  eyes  flashed  in  token  that  he 


SEMPER   IDEM  217 

heard,  and  a  moment  later  the  hospital  door 
swung  to  on  his  heel. 

It  was  a  busy  day  for  Doctor  Bicknell,  and 
the  afternoon  was  well  along  when  he  lighted  a 
cigar  preparatory  to  leaving  the  table  upon  which 
it  seemed  the  sufferers  almost  clamored  to  be 
laid.  But  the  last  one,  an  old  rag-picker  with  a 
broken  shoulder-blade,  had  been  disposed  of, 
and  the  first  fragrant  smoke  wreaths  had  begun 
to  curl  about  his  head,  when  the  gong  of  a  hurry 
ing  ambulance  came  through  the  open  window 
from  the  street,  followed  by  the  inevitable  entry 
of  the  stretcher  with  its  ghastly  freight. 

"Lay  it  on  the  table,"  the  Doctor  directed, 
turning  for  a  moment  to  place  his  cigar  in 
safety.  "What  is  it?" 

"Suicide  —  throat  cut,"  responded  one  of  the 
stretcher  bearers.  "Down  on  Morgan  Alley. 
Little  hope,  I  think,  sir.  He's  'most  gone." 

"Eh?  Well,  I'll  give  him  a  look,  anyway." 
He  leaned  over  the  man  at  the  moment  when  the 
quick  made  its  last  faint  flutter  and  succumbed. 

"It's  Semper  Idem  come  back  again,"  the 
steward  said. 


218  SEMPER   IDEM 

"Ay,"  replied  Doctor  Bicknell,  "and  gone 
again.  No  bungling  this  time.  Properly  done, 
upon  my  life,  sir,  properly  done.  Took  my 
advice  to  the  letter.  I'm  not  required  here. 
Take  it  along  to  the  morgue." 

Doctor  Bicknell  secured  his  cigar  and  re 
lighted  it.  "That,"  he  said  between  the  puffs, 
looking  at  the  steward,  "that  evens  up  for  the 
one  you  lost  last  night.  We're  quits  now." 


A  NOSE  FOR  THE  KING 


A  NOSE  FOR  THE  KING 

IN  the  morning  calm  of  Korea,  when  its 
peace  and  tranquillity  truly  merited  its 
ancient  name,  "Cho-sen,"  there  lived  a 
politician  by  name  Yi  Chin  Ho.  He  was  a 
man  of  parts,  and  —  who  shall  say  ?  —  perhaps 
in  no  wise  worse  than  politicians  the  world 
over.  But,  unlike  his  brethren  in  other  lands, 
Yi  Chin  Ho  was  in  jail.  Not  that  he  had  in 
advertently  diverted  to  himself  public  moneys, 
but  that  he  had  inadvertently  diverted  too 
much.  Excess  is  to  be  deplored  in  all  things, 
even  in  grafting,  and  Yi  Chin  Ho's  excess  had 
brought  him  to  most  deplorable  straits. 

Ten  thousand  strings  of  cash  he  owed  the 
government,  and  he  lay  in  prison  under  sen 
tence  of  death.  There  was  one  advantage  to 
the  situation  —  he  had  plenty  of  time  in  which 
to  think.  And  he  thought  well.  Then  called 
he  the  jailer  to  him. 

221 


222  A  NOSE   FOR  THE   KING 

"Most  worthy  man,  you  see  before  you  one 
most  wretched,"  he  began.  "Yet  all  will  be 
well  with  me  if  you  will  but  let  me  go  free  for 
one  short  hour  this  night.  And  all  will  be 
well  with  you,  for  I  shall  see  to  your  advance 
ment  through  the  years,  and  you  shall  come  at 
length  to  the  directorship  of  all  the  prisons  of 
Cho-sen." 

"How,  now  ?"  demanded  the  jailer.  "What 
foolishness  is  this  ?  One  short  hour,  and  you 
but  waiting  for  your  head  to  be  chopped  off! 
And  I,  with  an  aged  and  much-to-be-respected 
mother,  not  to  say  anything  of  a  wife  and 
several  children  of  tender  years !  Out  upon 
you  for  the  scoundrel  that  you  are!" 

"From  the  Sacred  City  to  the  ends  of  all  the 
Eight  Coasts  there  is  no  place  for  me  to  hide," 
Yi  Chin  Ho  made  reply.  "  I  am  a  man  of  wis 
dom,  but  of  what  worth  my  wisdom  here  in 
prison  ?  Were  I  free,  well  I  know  I  could  seek 
out  and  obtain  the  money  wherewith  to  repay 
the  government.  I  know  of  a  nose  that  will 
save  me  from  all  my  difficulties." 

"A  nose!"    cried  the  jailer. 


A  NOSE   FOR   THE   KING  223 

"A  nose,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho.  "A  remarkable 
nose,  if  I  may  say  so,  a  most  remarkable  nose." 

The  jailer  threw  up  his  hands  despairingly. 
"Ah,  what  a  wag  you  are,  what  a  wag,"  he 
laughed.  "To  think  that  that  very  admirable 
wit  of  yours  must  go  the  way  of  the  chopping- 
block!" 

And  so  saying,  he  turned  and  went  away. 
But  in  the  end,  being  a  man  soft  of  head  and 
heart,  when  the  night  was  well  along  he  per 
mitted  Yi  Chin  Ho  to  go. 

Straight  he  went  to  the  Governor,  catching 
him  alone  and  arousing  him  from  his  sleep. 

"Yi  Chin  Ho,  or  I'm  no  Governor!"  cried 
the  Governor.  "What  do  you  here  who  should 
be  in  prison  waiting  on  the  chopping-block  ?" 

"I  pray  your  excellency  to  listen  to  me," 
said  Yi  Chin  Ho,  squatting  on  his  hams  by  the 
bedside  and  lighting  his  pipe  from  the  fire-box. 
"A  dead  man  is  without  value.  It  is  true,  I 
am  as  a  dead  man,  without  value  to  the  govern 
ment,  to  your  excellency,  or  to  myself.  But  if, 
so  to  say,  your  excellency  were  to  give  me  my 
freedom  — " 


224  A   NOSE   FOR   THE    KING 

"Impossible!"  cried  the  Governor.  "Be 
sides,  you  are  condemned  to  death." 

"Your  excellency  well  knows  that  if  I  can 
repay  the  ten  thousand  strings  of  cash,  the  gov 
ernment  will  pardon  me,"  Yi  Chin  Ho  went  on. 
"So,  as  I  say,  if  your  excellency  were  to  give 
me  my  freedom  for  a  few  days,  being  a  man 
of  understanding,  I  should  then  repay  the  gov 
ernment  and  be  in  position  to  be  of  service  to 
your  excellency.  I  should  be  in  position  to  be 
of  very  great  service  to  your  excellency." 

"Have  you  a  plan  whereby  you  hope  to 
obtain  this  money?"  asked  the  Governor. 

"I  have,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho. 

"Then  come  with  it  to  me  to-morrow  night; 
I  would  now  sleep,"  said  the  Governor,  taking 
up  his  snore  where  it  had  been  interrupted. 

On  the  following  night,  having  again  ob 
tained  leave  of  absence  from  the  jailer,  Yi  Chin 
Ho  presented  himself  at  the  Governor's  bedside. 

"Is  it  you,  Yi  Chin  Ho?"  asked  the  Gov 
ernor.  "And  have  you  the  plan  ?" 

"It  is  I,  your  excellency,"  answered  Yi 
Chin  Ho,  "and  the  plan  is  here." 


A  NOSE   FOR  THE   KING  225 

"Speak,"  commanded  the  Governor. 

"The  plan  is  here,"  repeated  Yi  Chin  Ho, 
"here  in  my  hand." 

The  Governor  sat  up  and  opened  his  eyes. 
Yi  Chin  Ho  proffered  in  his  hand  a  sheet  of 
paper.  The  Governor  held  it  to  the  light. 

"Nothing  but  a  nose,"  said  he. 

"A  bit  pinched,  so,  and  so,  your  excellency," 
said  Yi  Chin  Ho. 

"Yes,  a  bit  pinched  here  and  there,  as  you 
say,"  said  the  Governor. 

"Withal  it  is  an  exceeding  corpulent  nose, 
thus,  and  so,  all  in  one  place,  at  the  end,"  pro 
ceeded  Yi  Chin  Ho.  "Your  excellency  would 
seek  far  and  wide  and  many  a  day  for  that 
nose  and  find  it  not." 

"An  unusual  nose,"  admitted  the  Governor. 

"There  is  a  wart  upon  it,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho. 

"A  most  unusual  nose,"  said  the  Governor. 
"Never  have  I  seen  the  like.  But  what  do  you 
with  this  nose,  Yi  Chin  Ho?" 

"  I  seek  it  whereby  to  repay  the  money  to  the 
government,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho.     "I  seek  it  to 
be  of  service  to  your  excellency,  and  I  seek  it 
Q 


226  A   NOSE   FOR   THE   KING 

to  save  my  own  worthless  head.    Further,  I  seek 
your  excellency's  seal  upon  this  picture  of  the 


nose." 


And  the  Governor  laughed  and  affixed  the 
seal  of  state,  and  Yi  Chin  Ho  departed.  For  a 
month  and  a  day  he  travelled  the  King's  Road 
which  leads  to  the  shore  of  the  Eastern  Sea; 
and  there,  one  night,  at  the  gate  of  the  largest 
mansion  of  a  wealthy  city  he  knocked  loudly 
for  admittance. 

"None  other  than  the  master  of  the  house 
will  I  see,"  said  he  fiercely  to  the  frightened 
servants.  "I  travel  upon  the  King's  business." 

Straightway  was  he  led  to  an  inner  room, 
where  the  master  of  the  house  was  roused 
from  his  sleep  and  brought  blinking  before 
him. 

"You  are  Pak  Chung  Chang,  head  man  of 
this  city,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho  in  tones  that  were 
all-accusing.  "I  am  upon  the  King's  business." 

Pak  Chung  Chang  trembled.  Well  he  knew 
the  King's  business  was  ever  a  terrible  busi 
ness.  His  knees  smote  together,  and  he  near 
fell  to  the  floor. 


A  NOSE   FOR  THE   KING  227 

"The  hour  is  late/'  he  quavered.  "Were  it 
not  well  to  — " 

"The  King's  business  never  waits!" 
thundered  Yi  Chin  Ho.  "Come  apart  with 
me,  and  swiftly.  I  have  an  affair  of  moment 
to  discuss  with  you. 

"It  is  the  King's  affair,"  he  added  with 
even  greater  fierceness;  so  that  Pak  Chung 
Chang's  silver  pipe  dropped  from  his  nerveless 
fingers  and  clattered  on  the  floor. 

"Know  then,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho,  when  they 
had  gone  apart,  "that  the  King  is  troubled 
with  an  affliction,  a  very  terrible  affliction.  In 
that  he  failed  to  cure,  the  Court  physician  has 
had  nothing  else  than  his  head  chopped  off. 
From  all  the  Eight  Provinces  have  the  phy 
sicians  come  to  wait  upon  the  King.  Wise 
consultation  have  they  held,  and  they  have 
decided  that  for  a  remedy  for  the  King's  afflic 
tion  nothing  else  is  required  than  a  nose,  a  cer 
tain  kind  of  nose,  a  very  peculiar  certain  kind 
of  nose. 

"Then  by  none  other  was  I  summoned  than 
his  excellency  the  prime  minister  himself.  He 


228  A  NOSE   FOR  THE    KING 

put  a  paper  into  my  hand.  Upon  this  paper 
was  the  very  peculiar  kind  of  nose  drawn  by 
the  physicians  of  the  Eight  Provinces,  with  the 
seal  of  state  upon  it. 

"Go/  said  his  excellency  the  prime  minis 
ter.  'Seek  out  this  nose,  for  the  King's  afflic 
tion  is  sore.  And  wheresoever  you  find  this 
nose  upon  the  face  of  a  man,  strike  it  off  forth 
right  and  bring  it  in  all  haste  to  the  Court,  for 
the  King  must  be  cured.  Go,  and  come  not 
back  until  your  search  is  rewarded/ 

"And  so  I  departed  upon  my  quest/'  said 
Yi  Chin  Ho.  "I  have  sought  out  the  remotest 
corners  of  the  kingdom;  I  have  travelled  the 
Eight  Highways,  searched  the  Eight  Provinces, 
and  sailed  the  seas  of  the  Eight  Coasts.  And 
here  I  am." 

With  a  great  flourish  he  drew  a  paper  from 
his  girdle,  unrolled  it  with  many  snappings  and 
cracklings,  and  thrust  it  before  the  face  of  Pak 
Chung  Chang.  Upon  the  paper  was  the  pic 
ture  of  the  nose. 

Pak  Chung  Chang  stared  upon  it  with  bulg 
ing  eyes. 


A  NOSE   FOR  THE   KING  229 

"Never  have  I  beheld  such  a  nose,"  he 
began. 

"There  is  a  wart  upon  it,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho. 

"Never  have  I  beheld—"  Pak  Chung 
Chang  began  again. 

"Bring  your  father  before  me,"  Yi  Chin  Ho 
interrupted  sternly. 

"My  ancient  and  very-much-to-be-respected 
ancestor  sleeps,"  said  Pak  Chung  Chang. 

"Why  dissemble?"  demanded  Yi  Chin  Ho. 
"You  know  it  is  your  father's  nose.  Bring 
him  before  me  that  I  may  strike  it  off  and  be 
gone.  Hurry,  lest  I  make  bad  report  of  you." 

"Mercy!"  cried  Pak  Chung  Chang,  falling 
on  his  knees.  "It  is  impossible!  It  is  im 
possible  !  You  cannot  strike  off  my  father's 
nose.  He  cannot  go  down  without  his  nose  to 
the  grave.  He  will  become  a  laughter  and  a 
byword,  and  all  my  days  and  nights  will  be 
filled  with  woe.  O  reflect!  Report  that  you 
have  seen  no  such  nose  in  your  travels.  You, 
too,  have  a  father." 

Pak  Chung  Chang  clasped  Yi  Chin  Ho'$ 
knees  and  fell  to  weeping  on  his  sandals. 


230  A  NOSE   FOR   THE   KING 

"My  heart  softens  strangely  at  your  tears," 
said  Yi  Chin  Ho.  "I,  too,  know  filial  piety 
and  regard.  But — "  He  hesitated,  then 
added,  as  though  thinking  aloud,  "It  is  as 
much  as  my  head  is  worth." 

"How  much  is  your  head  worth?"  asked 
Pak  Chung  Chang  in  a  thin,  small  voice. 

"A  not  remarkable  head,"  said  Yi  Chin  Ho. 
"An  absurdly  unremarkable  head;  but,  such  is 
my  great  foolishness,  I  value  it  at  nothing  less 
than  one  hundred  thousand  strings  of  cash." 

"So  be  it,"  said  Pak  Chung  Chang,  rising  to 
his  feet. 

"I  shall  need  horses  to  carry  the  treasure/5 
said  Yi  Chin  Ho,  "  and  men  to  guard  it  well  as 
I  journey  through  the  mountains.  There  are 
robbers  abroad  in  the  land." 

"There  are  robbers  abroad  in  the  land," 
said  Pak  Chung  Chang,  sadly.  "But  it  shall 
be  as  you  wish,  so  long  as  my  ancient  and 
very-much-to-be-respected  ancestor's  nose  abide 
in  its  appointed  place." 

"Say  nothing  to  any  man  of  this  occurrence," 
said  Yi  Chin  Ho,  "else  will  other  and  more 


A  NOSE   FOR   THE   KING  231 

loyal  servants  than  I  be  sent  to  strike  off  your 
father's  nose/' 

And  so  Yi  Chin  Ho  departed  on  his  way 
through  the  mountains,  blithe  of  heart  and  gay 
of  song  as  he  listened  to  the  jingling  bells  of  his 
treasure-laden  ponies. 

There  is  little  more  to  tell.  Yi  Chin  Ho 
prospered  through  the  years.  By  his  efforts 
the  jailer  attained  at  length  to  the  directorship 
of  all  the  orisons  of  Cho-sen;  the  Governor 
ultimately  betook  nimseii  to  the  Sacred  City  to 
be  prime  minister  to  the  King,  while  Yi  Chin 
Ho  became  the  King's  boon  companion  and  sat 
at  table  with  him  to  the  end  of  a  round,  fat  life. 
But  Pak  Chung  Chang  fell  into  a  melancholy, 
and  ever  after  he  shook  his  head  sadly,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes,  whenever  he  regarded  the 
expensive  nose  of  his  ancient  and  very-much- 
to-be-respected  ancestor. 


THE  "FRANCIS  SPAIGHT; 


THE  "FRANCIS  SPAIGHT" 

(A  TRUE  TALE  RETOLD) 

THE  Francis  Spatghtwas  running  before 
it  solely  under  a  mizzentopsail,  when 
the  thing  happened.  It  was  not  due  to 
carelessness  so  much  as  to  the  lack  of  discipline 
of  the  crew  and  to  the  fact  that  they  were 
indifferent  seamen  at  best.  The  man  at  the 
wheel  in  particular,  a  Limerick  man,  had  had 
no  experience  with  salt  water  beyond  that  of 
rafting  timber  on  the  Shannon  between  the 
Quebec  vessels  and  the  shore.  He  was  afraid 
of  the  huge  seas  that  rose  out  of  the  murk 
astern  and  bore  down  upon  him,  and  he  was 
more  given  to  cowering  away  from  their 
threatened  impact  than  he  was  to  meeting 
their  blows  with  the  wheel  and  checking  the 
ship's  rush  to  broach  to. 

It  was  three  in  the  morning  when  his  un- 
seamanlike  conduct  precipitated  the  catastro 
phe.  At  sight  of  a  sea  far  larger  than  its 

235 


236          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

fellows,  he  crouched  down,  releasing  his  hands 
from  the  spokes.  The  Francis  Spaight  sheered 
as  her  stern  lifted  on  the  sea,  receiving  the  full 
fling  of  the  cap  on  her  quarter.  The  next 
instant  she  was  in  the  trough,  her  lee-rail  buried 
till  the  ocean  was  level  with  her  hatch-combings, 
sea  after  sea  breaking  over  her  weather  rail 
and  sweeping  what  remained  exposed  of  the 
deck  with  icy  deluges. 

The  men  were  out  of  hand,  helpless  and 
hopeless,  stupid  in  their  bewilderment  and 
fear,  and  resolute  only  in  that  they  would  not 
obey  orders.  Some  wailed,  others  clung  silently 
in  the  weather  shrouds,  and  still  others  muttered 
prayers  or  shrieked  vile  imprecations;  and 
neither  captain  nor  mate  could  get  them  to 
bear  a  hand  at  the  pumps  or  at  setting  patches 
of  sails  to  bring  the  vessel  up  to  the  wind  and 
sea.  Inside  the  hour  the  ship  was  over  on  her 
beam  ends,  the  lubberly  cowards  climbing  up 
her  side  and  hanging  on  in  the  rigging.  When 
she  went  over,  the  mate  was  caught  and  drowned 
in  the  after-cabin,  as  were  two  sailors  who  had 
sought  refuge  in  the  forecastle. 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"  237 

The  mate  had  been  the  ablest  man  on  board, 
and  the  captain  was  now  scarcely  less  helpless 
than  his  men.  Beyond  cursing  them  for  their 
worthlessness,  he  did  nothing;  and  it  remained 
for  a  man  named  Mahoney,  a  Belfast  man, 
and  a  boy,  O'Brien,  of  Limerick,  to  cut  away 
the  fore  and  main  masts.  This  they  did  at 
great  risk  on  the  perpendicular  wall  of  the 
wreck,  sending  the  mizzentopmast  overside 
along  in  the  general  crash.  The  Francis 
Spaigbt  righted,  and  it  was  well  that  she  was 
lumber  laden,  else  she  would  have  sunk,  for 
she  was  already  water-logged.  The  mainmast, 
still  fast  by  the  shrouds,  beat  like  a  thunderous 
sledge-hammer  against  the  ship's  side,  every 
stroke  bringing  groans  from  the  men. 

Day  dawned  on  the  savage  ocean,  and  in 
the  cold  gray  light  all  that  could  be  seen  of 
the  Francis  Spaight  emerging  from  the  sea  were 
the  poop,  the  shattered  mizzenmast,  and  a 
ragged  line  of  bulwarks.  It  was  midwinter  in 
the  North  Atlantic,  and  the  wretched  men  were 
half-dead  from  cold.  But  there  was  no  place 
where  they  could  find  rest.  Every  sea  breached 


230  THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

clean  over  the  wreck,  washing  away  the  salt 
incrustations  from  their  bodies  and  depositing 
fresh  incrustations.  The  cabin  under  the  poop 
was  awash  to  the  knees,  but  here  at  least  was 
shelter  from  the  chill  wind,  and  here  the  sur 
vivors  congregated,  standing  upright,  holding 
on  by  the  cabin  furnishings,  and  leaning  against 
one  another  for  support. 

In  vain  Mahoney  strove  to  get  the  men  to 
take  turns  in  watching  aloft  from  the  mizzen- 
mast  for  any  chance  vessel.  The  icy  gale  was 
too  much  for  them,  and  they  preferred  the 
shelter  of  the  cabin.  O'Brien,  the  boy,  who 
was  only  fifteen,  took  turns  with  Mahoney  on 
the  freezing  perch.  It  was  the  boy,  at  three 
in  the  afternoon,  who  called  down  that  he  had 
sighted  a  sail.  This  did  bring  them  from 
the  cabin,  and  they  crowded  the  poop  rail 
and  weather  mizzen  shrouds  as  they  watched 
the  strange  ship.  But  its  course  did  not  lie 
near,  and  when  it  disappeared  below  the  sky 
line,  they  returned  shivering  to  the  cabin,  not 
one  offering  to  relieve  the  watch  at  the  mast 
head. 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          239 

By  the  end  of  the  second  day,  Mahoney  and 
O'Brien  gave  up  their  attempt,  and  thereafter 
the  vessel  drifted  in  the  gale  uncared  for  and 
without  a  lookout.  There  were  thirteen  alive, 
and  for  seventy-two  hours  they  stood  knee- 
deep  in  the  sloshing  water  on  the  cabin  floor, 
half-frozen,  without  food,  and  with  but  three 
bottles  of  wine  shared  among  them.  All  food 
and  fresh  water  were  below,  and  there  was  no 
getting  at  such  supplies  in  the  water-logged 
condition  of  the  wreck.  As  the  days  went  by, 
no  food  whatever  passed  their  lips.  Fresh 
water,  in  small  quantities,  they  were  able  to 
obtain  by  holding  a  cover  of  a  tureen  under 
the  saddle  of  the  mizzenmast.  But  the  rain 
fell  infrequently,  and  they  were  hard  put. 
When  it  rained,  they  also  soaked  their  hand 
kerchiefs,  squeezing  them  out  into  their  mouths 
or  into  their  shoes.  As  the  wind  and  sea  went 
down,  they  were  even  able  to  mop  the  exposed 
portions  of  the  deck  that  were  free  from  brine 
and  so  add  to  their  water  supply.  But  food 
they  had  none,  and  no  way  of  getting  it,  though 
sea-birds  flew  repeatedly  overhead. 


240          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

In  the  calm  weather  that  followed  the  gale, 
after  having  remained  on  their  feet  for  ninety- 
six  hours,  they  were  able  to  find  dry  planks  in 
the  cabin  on  which  to  lie.  But  the  long  hours 
of  standing  in  the  salt  water  had  caused  sores 
to  form  on  their  legs.  These  sores  were  ex 
tremely  painful.  The  slightest  contact  or  scrape 
caused  severe  anguish,  and  in  their  weak  con 
dition  and  crowded  situation  they  were  con 
tinually  hurting  one  another  in  this  manner. 
Not  a  man  could  move  about  without  being 
followed  by  volleys  of  abuse,  curses,  and  groans. 
So  great  was  their  misery  that  the  strong  op 
pressed  the  weak,  shoving  them  aside  from  the 
dry  planks  to  shift  for  themselves  in  the  cold 
and  wet.  The  boy,  O'Brien,  was  specially 
maltreated.  Though  there  were  three  other 
boys,  it  was  O'Brien  who  came  in  for  most  of 
the  abuse.  There  was  no  explaining  it,  except 
on  the  ground  that  his  was  a  stronger  and  more 
dominant  spirit  than  those  of  the  other  boys, 
and  that  he  stood  up  more  for  his  rights,  resent 
ing  the  petty  injustices  that  were  meted  out  to 
all  the  boys  by  the  men.  Whenever  O'Brien 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          241 

came  near  the  men  in  search  of  a  dry  place  to 
sleep,  or  merely  moved  about,  he  was  kicked 
and  cuffed  away.  In  return,  he  cursed  them 
for  their  selfish  brutishness,  and  blows  and 
kicks  and  curses  were  rained  upon  him.  Miser 
able  as  were  all  of  them,  he  was  thus  made  far 
more  miserable;  and  it  was  only  the  flame  of 
life,  unusually  strong  in  him,  that  enabled  him 
to  endure. 

As  the  days  went  by  and  they  grew  weaker, 
their  peevishness  and  ill-temper  increased, 
which,  in  turn,  increased  the  ill-treatment  and 
sufferings  of  O'Brien.  By  the  sixteenth  day 
all  hands  were  far  gone  with  hunger,  and  they 
stood  together  in  small  groups,  talking  in  under 
tones  and  occasionally  glancing  at  O'Brien.  It 
was  at  high  noon  that  the  conference  came  to 
a  head.  The  captain  was  the  spokesman.  All 
were  collected  on  the  poop. 

"Men,"  the  captain  began,  "we  have  been 
a  long  time  without  food  —  two  weeks  and  two 
days  it  is,  though  it  seems  more  like  two  years 
and  two  months.  We  can't  hang  out  much 
longer.  It  is  beyond  human  nature  to  go  on 


242          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

hanging  out  with  nothing  in  our  stomachs, 
There  is  a  serious  question  to  consider:  whether 
it  is  better  for  all  to  die,  or  for  one  to  die.  We 
are  standing  with  our  feet  in  our  graves.  If 
one  of  us  dies,  the  rest  may  live  until  a  ship  is 
sighted.  What  say  you  ?" 

Michael  Behane,  the  man  who  had  been  at 
the  wheel  when  the  Francis  Spaight  broached 
to,  called  out  that  it  was  well.  The  others 
joined  in  the  cry. 

"Let  it  be  one  of  the  b'ys!"  cried  Sullivan, 
a  Tarbert  man,  glancing  at  the  same  time  sig 
nificantly  at  O'Brien. 

"It  is  my  opinion,"  the  captain  went  on, 
"that  it  will  be  a  good  deed  for  one  of  us  to 
die  for  the  rest." 

"A  good  deed  I  A  good  deed!"  the  men 
interjected. 

"And  it  is  my  opinion  that  'tis  best  for  one 
of  the  boys  to  die.  They  have  no  families  to 
support,  nor  would  they  be  considered  so  great 
a  loss  to  their  friends  as  those  who  have  wives 
and  children." 

"Tis   right."    "Very   right."     "Very   fit   it 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          243 

should   be   done/'   the   men   muttered   one  to 
another. 

But  the  four  boys  cried  out  against  the  in 
justice  of  it. 

"Our  lives  is  just  as  dear  to  us  as  the  rest 
iv  yez,"  O'Brien  protested.  "An*  our  famblies, 
too.  As  for  wives  an'  childer,  who  is  there 
savin'  meself  to  care  for  me  old  mother  that's 
a  widow,  as  you  know  well,  Michael  Behane, 
that  comes  from  Limerick  ?  'Tis  not  fair. 
Let  the  lots  be  drawn  between  all  of  us,  men 
and  b'ys." 

Mahoney  was  the  only  man  who  spoke  in 
favor  of  the  boys,  declaring  that  it  was  the  fair 
thing  for  all  to  share  alike.  Sullivan  and  the 
captain  insisted  on  the  drawing  of  lots  being 
confined  to  the  boys.  There  were  high  words, 
in  the  midst  of  which  Sullivan  turned  upon 
O'Brien,  snarling:  — 

"Twould  be  a  good  deed  to  put  you  out  of 
the  way.  You  deserve  it.  'Twould  be  the 
right  way  to  serve  you,  an'  serve  you  we  will." 

He  started  toward  O'Brien,  with  intent  to 
lay  hands  on  him  and  proceed  at  once  with  the 


*44          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

killing,  while  several  others  likewise  shuffled 
toward  him  and  reached  for  him.  He  stumbled 
backwards  to  escape  them,  at  the  same  time 
crying  that  he  would  submit  to  the  drawing  of 
the  lots  among  the  boys. 

The  captain  prepared  four  sticks  of  different 
lengths  and  handed  them  to  Sullivan. 

"You're  thinkin'  the  drawin'll  not  be  fair," 
the  latter  sneered  to  O'Brien.  "So  it's  yer- 
self'll  do  the  drawin'." 

To  this  O'Brien  agreed.  A  handkerchief 
was  tied  over  his  eyes,  blindfolding  him,  and 
he  knelt  down  on  the  deck  with  his  back  to 
Sullivan. 

"Whoever  you  name  for  the  shortest  stick'll 
die,"  the  captain  said. 

Sullivan  held  up  one  of  the  sticks.  The  rest 
were  concealed  in  his  hand  so  that  no  one 
could  see  whether  it  was  the  short  stick  or  not. 

"An'  whose  stick  will  it  be?"  Sullivan 
demanded. 

"For  little  Johnny  Sheehan,"  O'Brien  an 
swered. 

Sullivan   laid   the   stick   aside.    Those  who 


THE   "FRANCIS    SPAIGHT"  245 

looked  could  not  tell  if  it  were  the  fatal  one, 
Sullivan  held  up  another  stick. 

"Whose  will  it  be?" 

"For  George  Burns/'  was  the  reply. 

The  stick  was  laid  with  the  first  one,  and  a 
ihird  held  up. 

"An*  whose  is  this  wan  ?" 

"For  myself,"  said  O'Brien. 

With  a  quick  movement,  Sullivan  threw  the 
four  sticks  together.  No  one  had  seen. 

"'Tis  for  yourself  ye've  drawn  it,"  Sullivan 
announced. 

"A  good  deed,"  several  of  the  men  muttered. 

O'Brien  was  very  quiet.  He  arose  to  his 
feet,  took  the  bandage  off,  and  looked  around. 

" Where  is  ut?"  he  demanded.  "The  short 
stick  ?  The  wan  for  me  ?" 

The  captain  pointed  to  the  four  sticks  lying 
on  the  deck. 

"How  do  you  know  the  stick  was  mine?" 
O'Brien  questioned.  "Did  you  see  ut,  Johnny 
Sheehan?" 

Johnny  Sheehan,  who  was  the  youngest  of 
the  boys,  did  not  answer. 


246          THE   "FRANCIS    SPAIGHT" 

"Did  you  see  ut  ?"  O'Brien  next  asked  Ma« 
honey. 

"No,  I  didn't  see  ut." 

The  men  were  muttering  and  growling. 
"Twas  a  fair  drawin',"  Sullivan  said.     "Ye 
had  yer  chanct  an'  ye  lost,  that's  all  iv  ut." 

"A  fair  drawin',"  the  captain  added. 
"Didn't  I  behold  it  myself?  The  stick  was 
yours,  O'Brien,  an'  ye  may  as  well  get  ready. 
Where's  the  cook  ?  Gorman,  come  here.  Fetch 
the  tureen  cover,  some  of  ye.  Gorman,  do  your 
duty  like  a  man." 

"But  how'll  I  do  it?"  the  cook  demanded. 
He  was  a  weak-eyed,  weak-chinned,  indecisive 
man. 

"'Tis  a  damned  murder!"  O'Brien  cried 
out. 

"I'll  have  none  of  ut,"  Mahoney  announced. 
"Not  a  bite  shall  pass  me  lips." 

"Then  'tis  yer  share  for  better  men  than 
yerself,"  Sullivan  sneered.  "Go  on  with  yer 
duty,  cook." 

"Tis  not  me  duty,  the  killin'  of  b'ys,"  Gor 
man  protested  irresolutely. 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          247 

"If  yez  don't  make  mate  for  us,  we'll  be 
makin'  mate  of  yerself,"  Behane  threatened. 
"Somebody  must  die,  an'  as  well  you  as  an 
other." 

Johnny  Sheehan  began  to  cry.  O'Brien 
listened  anxiously.  His  face  was  pale.  His 
lips  trembled,  and  at  times  his  whole  body 
shook. 

"I  signed  on  as  cook,"  Gorman  enounced. 
"An*  cook  I  wud  if  galley  there  was.  But  I'll 
not  lay  me  hand  to  murder.  'Tis  not  in  the 
articles.  I'm  the  cook  — " 

"An'  cook  ye'll  be  for  wan  minute  more 
only/'  Sullivan  said  grimly,  at  the  same  mo 
ment  gripping  the  cook's  head  from  behind 
and  bending  it  back  till  the  windpipe  and 
jugular  were  stretched  taut.  "Where's  yer 
knife,  Mike  ?  Pass  it  along." 

At  the  touch  of  the  steel,  Gorman  whimpered. 

"I'll  do  ut,  if  yez'll  hold  the  b'y." 

The  pitiable  condition  of  the  cook  seemed 
in  some  fashion  to  nerve  up  O'Brien. 

"It's  all  right,  Gorman,"  he  said.  "Go  on 
with  ut.  'Tis  meself  knows  yer  not  wantin'  to 


248          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

do  ut.  It's  all  right,  sir"  —  this  to  the  captain, 
who  had  laid  a  hand  heavily  on  his  arm.  "Ye 
won't  have  to  hold  me,  sir.  I'll  stand  still." 

"Stop  yer  blitherin',  an'  go  an'  get  the  tureen 
cover,"  Behane  commanded  Johnny  Sheehan, 
at  the  same  time  dealing  him  a  heavy  cuff 
alongside  the  head. 

The  boy,  who  was  scarcely  more  than  a 
child,  fetched  the  cover.  He  crawled  and 
tottered  along  the  deck,  so  weak  was  he  from 
hunger.  The  tears  still  ran  down  his  cheeks. 
Behane  took  the  cover  from  him,  at  the  same 
time  administering  another  cuff. 

O'Brien  took  off  his  coat  and  bared  his  right 
arm.  His  under  lip  still  trembled,  but  he 
held  a  tight  grip  on  himself.  The  captain's 
penknife  was  opened  and  passed  to  Gorman. 

"Mahoney,  tell  me  mother  what  happened 
to  me,  if  ever  ye  get  back,"  O'Brien  requested. 

Mahoney  nodded. 

"'Tis  black  murder,  black  an'  damned,"  he 
said.  "The  b'y's  flesh'll  do  none  iv  yez  anny 
good.  Mark  me  words.  Ye'll  not  profit  by  it, 
none  iv  vez." 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          249 

"Get  ready,"  the  captain  ordered.  "You, 
Sullivan,  hold  the  cover  —  that's  it  —  close  up. 
Spill  nothing.  It's  precious  stuff." 

Gorman  made  an  effort.  The  knife  was 
dull.  He  was  weak.  Besides,  his  hand  was 
shaking  so  violently  that  he  nearly  dropped  the 
knife.  The  three  boys  were  crouched  apart, 
in  a  huddle,  crying  and  sobbing.  With  the  ex 
ception  of  Mahoney,  the  men  were  gathered 
about  the  victim,  craning  their  necks  to  see. 

"  Be  a  man,  Gorman,"  the  captain  cautioned. 

The  wretched  cook  was  seized  with  a  spasm 
of  resolution,  sawing  back  and  forth  with  the 
blade  on  O'Brien's  wrist.  The  veins  were 
severed.  Sullivan  held  the  tureen  cover  close 
underneath.  The  cut  veins  gaped  wide,  but 
no  ruddy  flood  gushed  forth.  There  was  no 
blood  at  all.  The  veins  were  dry  and  empty. 
No  one  spoke.  The  grim  and  silent  figures 
swayed  in  unison  with  each  heave  of  the  ship. 
Every  eye  was  turned  fixedly  upon  that  incon 
ceivable  and  monstrous  thing,  the  dry  veins  of  a 
creature  that  was  alive. 

"'Tis   a  warnin',"   Mahoney  cried.     "Lave 


250          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

the  b'y  alone.  Mark  me  words.  His  death'll 
do  none  iv  yez  anny  good." 

"Try  at  the  elbow  —  the  left  elbow,  'tis 
nearer  the  heart/'  the  captain  said  finally,  in 
a  dim  and  husky  voice  that  was  unlike  his  own. 

"Give  me  the  knife,"  O'Brien  said  roughly, 
taking  it  out  of  the  cook's  hand.  "I  can't  be 
lookin'  at  ye  puttin'  me  to  hurt." 

Quite  coolly  he  cut  the  vein  at  the  left  elbow, 
but,  like  the  cook,  he  failed  to  bring  blood. 

"This  is  all  iv  no  use,"  Sullivan  said.  "'Tis 
better  to  put  him  out  iv  his  misery  by  bleedin' 
him  at  the  throat." 

The  strain  had  been  too  much  for  the  lad. 

"Don't  be  doin'  ut,"  he  cried.  "There'll 
be  no  blood  in  me  throat.  Give  me  a  little 
time.  'Tis  cold  an'  weak  I  am.  Be  lettin'  me 
lay  down  an'  slape  a  bit.  Then  I'll  be  warm 
an'  the  blood'll  flow." 

"'Tis  no  use,"  Sullivan  objected.  "As  if  ye 
cud  be  slapin'  at  a  time  like  this.  Ye'll  not 
slape,  and  ye'll  not  warm  up.  Look  at  ye  now. 
You've  an  ague." 

"I  was  sick  at  Limerick  wan  night,"  O'Brien 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          251 

hurried  on,  "an*  the  dochtor  cudn't  bleed 
me.  But  after  slapin'  a  few  hours  an'  gettin' 
warm  in  bed  the  blood  came  freely.  It's 
God's  truth  I'm  tellin'  yez.  Don't  be  mur- 
derin'  me!" 

"His  veins  are  open  now,"  the  captain  said. 
"'Tis  no  use  leavin'  him  in  his  pain.  Do  it 
now  an'  be  done  with  it." 

They  started  to  reach  for  O'Brien,  but  he 
backed  away. 

"I'll  be  the  death  iv  yez!"  he  screamed. 
"Take  yer  hands  off  iv  me,  Sullivan!  I'll 
come  back !  I'll  haunt  yez !  Wakin'  or  slapin', 
I'll  haunt  yez  till  you  die !" 

"'Tis  disgraceful!"  yelled  Behane.  "If  the 
short  stick'd  ben  mine,  I'd  a-let  me  mates  cut 
the  head  off  iv  me  an'  died  happy." 

Sullivan  leaped  in  and  caught  the  unhappy 
lad  by  the  hair.  The  rest  of  the  men  followed. 
O'Brien  kicked  and  struggled,  snarling  and 
snapping  at  the  hands  that  clutched  him  from 
every  side.  Little  Johnny  Sheehan  broke  out 
into  wild  screaming,  but  the  men  took  no  notice 
of  him.  O'Brien  was  bent  backward  to  the 


252          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

deck,  the  tureen  cover  under  his  neck.  Gorman 
was  shoved  forward.  Some  one  had  thrust  a 
large  sheath-knife  into  his  hand. 

"Do  yer  duty!  Do  yer  duty!"  the  men 
cried. 

The  cook  bent  over,  but  he  caught  the  boy's 
eye  and  faltered. 

"If  ye  don't,  I'll  kill  ye  with  me  own  hands," 
Behane  shouted. 

From  every  side  a  torrent  of  abuse  and 
threats  poured  in  upon  the  cook.  Still  he  hung 
back. 

"Maybe  there'll  be  more  blood  in  his  veins 
than  O'Brien's,"  Sullivan  suggested  significantly. 

Behane  caught  Gorman  by  the  hair  and 
twisted  his  head  back,  while  Sullivan  attempted 
to  take  possession  of  the  sheath-knife.  But 
Gorman  clung  to  it  desperately. 

"Lave  go,  an'  I'll  do  ut!"  he  screamed 
frantically.  "Don't  be  cuttin'  me  throat!  I'll 
do  the  deed  I  I'll  do  the  deed  !" 

"See  that  you  do  it,  then,"  the  captain 
threatened  him. 

Gorman  allowed  himself  to  be  shoved  for- 


THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT"          253 

ward.  He  looked  at  the  boy,  closed  his  eyes, 
and  muttered  a  prayer.  Then,  without  open 
ing  his  eyes,  he  did  the  deed  that  had  been 
appointed  him.  O'Brien  emitted  a  shriek  that 
sank  swiftly  to  a  gurgling  sob.  The  men  held 
him  till  his  struggles  ceased,  when  he  was  laid 
upon  the  deck.  They  were  eager  and  im 
patient,  and  with  oaths  and  threats  they  urged 
Gorman  to  hurry  with  the  preparation  of  the 
meal. 

"Lave  ut,  you  bloody  butchers,"  Mahoney 
said  quietly.  "Lave  ut,  I  tell  yez.  Ye'll  not 
be  needin'  anny  iv  ut  now.  'Tis  as  I  said' 
ye'll  not  be  profitin'  by  the  lad's  blood.  Empty 
ut  overside,  Behane.  Empty  ut  overside." 

Behane,  still  holding  the  tureen  cover  in  both 
his  hands,  glanced  to  windward.  He  walked 
to  the  rail  and  threw  the  cover  and  contents 
into  the  sea.  A  full-rigged  ship  was  bearing 
down  upon  them  a  short  mile  away.  So  occu 
pied  had  they  been  with  the  deed  just  com 
mitted,  that  none  had  had  eyes  for  a  lookout. 
All  hands  watched  her  coming  on  —  the  brightly 
coppered  forefoot  parting  the  water  like  a  gold  ^n 


254          THE   "FRANCIS   SPAIGHT" 

knife,  the  headsails  flapping  lazily  and  emptily 
at  each  downward  surge,  and  the  towering 
canvas  tiers  dipping  and  courtesying  with  each 
stately  swing  of  the  sea.  No  man  spoke. 

As  she  hove  to,  a  cable  length  away,  the 
captain  of  the  Francis  Spaight  bestirred  him 
self  and  ordered  a  tarpaulin  to  be  thrown  over 
O'Brien's  corpse.  A  boat  was  lowered  from 
the  stranger's  side  and  began  to  pull  toward 
them.  John  Gorman  laughed.  He  laughed 
softly  at  first,  but  he  accompanied  each  stroke 
of  the  oars  with  spasmodically  increasing  glee. 
It  was  this  maniacal  laughter  that  greeted  the 
rescue  boat  as  it  hauled  alongside  and  the  first 
officer  clambered  on  board. 


A  CURIOUS  FRAGMENT 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

[The  capitalist,  or  industrial  oligarch,  Roger 
Fanderwater,  mentioned  in  the  narrative,  has 
been  identified  as  the  ninth  in  the  line  of  the 
Fanderwaters  that  controlled  for  hundreds  of 
years  the  cotton  factories  of  the  South.  This 
Roger  Fanderwater  flourished  in  the  last  decades 
of  the  twenty-sixth  century  after  Christ,  which 
was  the  fifth  century  of  the  terrible  industrial 
oligarchy  that  was  reared  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
early  Republic. 

From  internal  evidences  we  are  convinced 
that  the  narrative  which  follows  was  not  reduced 
to  writing  till  the  twenty-ninth  century.  Not 
only  was  it  unlawful  to  write  or  print  such  matter 
during  that  period,  but  the  working-class  was  so 
illiterate  that  only  in  rare  instances  were  its 
members  able  to  read  and  write.  This  we:,  the 
dark  reign  of  the  overman,  in  whose  speech  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  were  characterized  as 
«  257 


258  A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

the  "herd  animals."  All  literacy  was  frowned 
upon  and  stamped  out.  From  the  statute-books 
of  the  times  may  be  instanced  that  black  law  that 
made  it  a  capital  offence  for  any  man,  no  matter 
of  what  class,  to  teach  even  the  alphabet  to  a 
member  of  the  working-class.  Such  stringent 
limitation  of  education  to  the  ruling  class  was 
necessary  if  that  class  was  to  continue  to  rule. 

One  result  of  the  foregoing  was  the  develop 
ment  of  the  professional  story-tellers.  These 
story-tellers  were  paid  by  the  oligarchy,  and  the 
tales  they  told  were  legendary,  mythical,  romantic, 
and  harmless.  But  the  spirit  of  freedom  never 
quite  died  out,  and  agitators,  under  the  guise 
of  story-tellers,  preached  revolt  to  the  slave  class. 
That  the  following  tale  was  banned  by  the 
oligarchs  we  have  proof  from  the  records  of  the 
criminal  police  court  of  Ashbury,  wherein,  on 
January  27,  2734,  one  John  Tourney,  found 
guilty  of  telling  the  tale  in  a  boozing-ken  of  labor 
ers,  was  sentenced  to  five  years9  penal  servitude 
in  tb:  borax  mines  of  the  Arizona  Desert.  —  EDI 
TOR'S  NOTE.] 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

LISTEN,  my  brothers,  and  I  will  tell 
you  a  tale  of  an  arm.  It  was  the  arm 
of  Tom  Dixon,  and  Tom  Dixon  was  a 
weaver  of  the  first  class  in  a  factory  of  that 
hell-hound  and  master,  Roger  Vanderwater. 
This  factory  was  called  "Hell's  Bottom"  .  .  . 
by  the  slaves  who  toiled  in  it,  and  I  guess  they 
ought  to  know;  and  it  was  situated  in  Kings- 
bury,  at  the  other  end  of  the  town  from  Vander- 
water's  summer  palace.  You  do  not  know 
where  Kingsbury  is  ?  There  are  many  things, 
my  brothers,  that  you  do  not  know,  and  it  is 
sad.  It  is  because  you  do  not  know  that  you  are 
slaves.  When  I  have  told  you  this  tale,  I  should 
like  to  form  a  class  among  you  for  the  learning 
of  written  and  printed  speech.  Our  masters 
read  and  write  and  possess  many  books,  and 
it  is  because  of  that  that  they  are  our  masters, 
and  live  in  palaces,  and  do  not  work.  When 
259 


26o  A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

the  toilers  learn  to  read  and  write,  —  all  of  them> 
—  they  will  grow  strong;  then  they  will  use 
their  strength  to  break  their  bonds,  and  there 
will  be  no  more  masters  and  no  more  slaves. 

Kingsbury,  my  brothers,  is  in  the  old  State 
of  Alabama.  For  three  hundred  years  the 
Vanderwaters  have  owned  Kingsbury  and  its 
slave  pens  and  factories,  and  slave  pens  and 
factories  in  many  other  places  and  States. 
You  have  heard  of  the  Vanderwaters,  —  who 
has  not  ?  —  but  let  me  tell  you  things  you  do 
not  know  about  them.  The  first  Vanderwater 
was  a  slave,  even  as  you  and  I.  Have  you  got 
that  ?  He  was  a  slave,  and  that  was  over 
three  hundred  years  ago.  His  father  was  a 
machinist  in  the  slave  pen  of  Alexander  Burrell, 
and  his  mother  was  a  washerwoman  in  the 
same  slave  pen.  There  is  no  doubt  about  this. 
I  am  telling  you  truth.  It  is  history.  It  is 
printed,  every  word  of  it,  in  the  history  books  of 
our  masters,  which  you  cannot  read  because 
your  masters  will  not  permit  you  to  learn  to 
read.  You  can  understand  why  they  will  not 
permit  you  to  learn  to  read,  when  there  are  such 


A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  261 

things  in  the  books.  They  know,  and  they  are 
very  wise.  If  you  did  read  such  things,  you 
might  be  wanting  in  respect  to  your  masters, 
which  would  be  a  dangerous  thing  ...  to 
your  masters.  But  I  know,  for  I  can  read,  and 
I  am  telling  you  what  I  have  read  with  my  own 
eyes  in  the  history  books  of  our  masters. 

The  first  Vanderwater's  name  was  not  Van- 
derwater;  it  was  Vange  —  Bill  Vange,  the  son 
of  Yergis  Vange,  the  machinist,  and  Laura 
Carnly,  the  washerwoman.  Young  Bill 
Vange  was  strong.  He  might  have  remained 
with  the  slaves  and  led  them  to  freedom;  in 
stead,  however,  he  served  the  masters  and  was 
well  rewarded.  He  began  his  service,  when 
yet  a  small  child,  as  a  spy  in  his  home  slave  pen. 
He  is  known  to  have  informed  on  his  own  father 
for  seditious  utterance.  This  is  fact.  I  have 
read  it  with  my  own  eyes  in  the  records.  He 
was  too  good  a  slave  for  the  slave  pen.  Alex 
ander  Burrell  took  him  out,  while  yet  a  child, 
and  he  was  taught  to  read  and  write.  He  was 
taught  many  things,  and  he  was  entered  in  the 
secret  service  of  the  government.  Of  course, 


262  A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

he  no  longer  wore  the  slave  dress,  except  for 
disguise  at  such  times  when  he  sought  to  pene 
trate  the  secrets  and  plots  of  the  slaves.  It  was 
he,  when  but  eighteen  years  of  age,  who  brought 
that  great  hero  and  comrade,  Ralph  Jacobus, 
to  trial  and  execution  in  the  electric  chair.  Of 
course,  you  have  all  heard  the  sacred  name  of 
Ralph  Jacobus,  but  it  is  news  to  you  that  he 
was  brought  to  his  death  by  the  first  Vander- 
water,  whose  name  was  Vange.  I  know.  I 
have  read  it  in  the  books.  There  are  many 
interesting  things  like  that  in  the  books. 

And  after  Ralph  Jacobus  died  his  shameful 
death,  Bill  Vange's  name  began  the  many 
changes  it  was  to  undergo.  He  was  known  as 
"Sly  Vange"  far  and  wide.  He  rose  high  in 
the  secret  service,  and  he  was  rewarded  in  grand 
ways,  but  still  he  was  not  a  member  of  the  mas 
ter  class.  The  men  were  willing  that  he  should 
become  so;  it  was  the  women  of  the  master 
class  who  refused  to  have  Sly  Vange  one  of  them. 
Sly  Vange  gave  good  service  to  the  masters.  He 
had  been  a  slave  himself,  and  he  knew  the  ways 
of  the  slaves.  There  was  no  fooling  him.  In 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  263 

those  days  the  slaves  were  braver  than  now, 
and  they  were  always  trying  for  their  freedom. 
And  Sly  Vange  was  everywhere,  in  all  their 
schemes  and  plans,  bringing  their  schemes  and 
plans  to  naught  and  their  leaders  to  the  electric 
chair.  It  was  in  2255  that  his  name  was  next 
changed  for  him.  It  was  in  that  year  that 
the  Great  Mutiny  took  place.  In  that  region 
west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  seventeen  mill 
ions  of  slaves  strove  bravely  to  overthrow  their 
masters.  Who  knows,  if  Sly  Vange  had  not 
lived,  but  that  they  would  have  succeeded  ?  But 
Sly  Vange  was  very  much  alive.  The  masters 
gave  him  supreme  command  of  the  situation.  In 
eight  months  of  fighting,  one  million  and  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  slaves  were  killed. 
Vange,  Bill  Vange,  Sly  Vange,  killed  them, 
and  he  broke  the  Great  Mutiny.  And  he  was 
greatly  rewarded,  and  so  red  were  his  hands  with 
the  blood  of  the  slaves  that  thereafter  he  was 
called  "  Bloody  Vange."  You  see,  my  brothers, 
what  interesting  things  are  to  be  found  in  the 
books  when  one  can  read  them.  And,  take  my 
word  for  it,  there  are  many  other  things,  even 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

more  interesting,  in  the  books.  And  if  you  will 
but  study  with  me,  in  a  year's  time  you  can 
read  those  books  for  yourselves  —  ay,  in  six 
months  some  of  you  will  be  able  to  read  those 
books  for  yourselves. 

Bloody  Vange  lived  to  a  ripe  old  age,  and  al 
ways,  to  the  last,  was  he  received  in  the  councils 
of  the  masters;  but  never  was  he  made  a  master 
himself.  He  had  first  opened  his  eyes,  you  see, 
in  a  slave  pen.  But  oh,  he  was  well  rewarded  ! 
He  had  a  dozen  palaces  in  which  to  live.  He, 
who  was  no  master,  owned  thousands  of  slaves. 
He  had  a  great  pleasure  yacht  upon  the  sea  that 
was  a  floating  palace,  and  he  owned  a  whole 
island  in  the  sea  where  toiled  ten  thousand 
slaves  on  his  coffee  plantations.  But  in  his  old 
age  he  was  lonely,  for  he  lived  apart,  hated  by 
his  brothers,  the  slaves,  and  looked  down  upon 
by  those  he  had  served  and  who  refused  to  be 
his  brothers.  The  masters  looked  down  upon 
him  because  he  had  been  born  a  slave.  Enor 
mously  wealthy  he  died;  but  he  died  horribly, 
tormented  by  his  conscience,  regretting  all  he 
had  done  and  the  red  stain  on  his  name. 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  265 

But  with  his  children  it  was  different.  They 
had  not  been  born  in  the  slave  pen,  and  by  the 
special  ruling  of  the  Chief  Oligarch  of  that  time, 
John  Morrison,  they  were  elevated  to  the 
master  class.  And  it  was  then  that  the  name  of 
Vange  disappears  from  the  page  of  history.  It 
becomes  Vanderwater,  and  Jason  Vange,  the 
son  of  Bloody  Vange,  becomes  Jason  Vander 
water,  the  founder  of  the  Vanderwater  line. 
But  that  was  three  hundred  years  ago, 
and  the  Vanderwaters  of  to-day  forget  their 
beginnings  and  imagine  that  somehow  the 
clay  of  their  bodies  is  different  stuff  from 
the  clay  in  your  body  and  mine  and  in  the  bodies 
of  all  slaves.  And  I  ask  you,  Why  should  a 
slave  become  the  master  of  another  slave  ? 
And  why  should  the  son  of  a  slave  become  the 
master  of  many  slaves  ?  I  leave  these  questions 
for  you  to  answer  for  yourselves,  but  do  not 
forget  that  in  the  beginning  the  Vanderwaters 
were  slaves. 

And  now,  my  brothers,  I  come  back  to  the 
beginning  of  my  tale  to  tell  you  of  Tom  Dixon's 
arm.  Roger  Vanderwater' s  factory  in  Kings- 


266  A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

bury  was  rightly  named  "Hell's  Bottom/4 
but  the  men  who  toiled  in  it  were  men,  as  you 
shall  see.  Women  toiled  there,  too,  and  chil 
dren,  little  children.  All  that  toiled  there  had 
the  regular  slave  rights  under  the  law,  but  only 
under  the  law,  for  they  were  deprived  of  many 
of  their  rights  by  the  two  overseers  of  Hell's 
Bottom,  Joseph  Clancy  and  Adolph  Munster. 

It  is  a  long  story,  but  I  shall  not  tell  all  of  it 
to  you.  I  shall  tell  only  about  the  arm.  It 
happened  that,  according  to  the  law,  a  portion 
of  the  starvation  wage  of  the  slaves  was  held 
back  each  month  and  put  into  a  fund.  This 
fund  was  for  the  purpose  of  helping  such  un 
fortunate  fellow-workmen  as  happened  to  be 
injured  by  accidents  or  to  be  overtaken  by  sick 
ness.  As  you  know  with  yourselves,  these 
funds  are  controlled  by  the  overseers.  It  is 
the  law,  and  so  it  was  that  the  fund  at  Hell's 
Bottom  was  controlled  by  the  two  overseers  of 
accursed  memory. 

Now,  Clancy  and  Munster  took  this  fund  for 
their  own  use.  When  accidents  happened  to 
the  workmen,  their  fellows,  as  was  the  custom, 


A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  267 

made  grants  from  the  fund;  but  the  overseers 
refused  to  pay  over  the  grants.  What  could 
the  slaves  do  ?  They  had  their  rights  under 
the  law,  but  they  had  no  access  to  the  law. 
Those  that  complained  to  the  overseers  were 
punished.  You  know  yourselves  what  form 
such  punishment  takes  —  the  fines  for  faulty 
work  that  is  not  faulty;  the  overcharging  of 
accounts  in  the  Company's  store;  the  vile 
treatment  of  one's  women  and  children;  and 
the  allotment  to  bad  machines  whereon,  work 
as  one  will,  he  starves. 

Once,  the  slaves  of  Hell's  Bottom  protested 
to  Vanderwater.  It  was  the  time  of  the  year 
when  he  spent  several  months  in  Kingsbury. 
One  of  the  slaves  could  write;  it  chanced  that 
his  mother  could  write,  and  she  had  secretly 
taught  him  as  her  mother  had  secretly  taught  her. 
So  this  slave  wrote  a  round  robin,  wherein  was 
contained  their  grievances,  and  all  the  slaves 
signed  by  mark.  And,  with  proper  stamps  upon 
the  envelope,  the  round  robin  was  mailed  to 
Roger  Vanderwater.  And  Roger  Vander 
water  did  nothing,  save  to  turn  the  round  robin 


268  A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

over  to  the  two  overseers.  Clancy  and  Mun- 
ster  were  angered.  They  turned  the  guards 
loose  at  night  on  the  slave  pen.  The  guards 
were  armed  with  pick  handles.  It  is  said  that 
next  day  only  half  of  the  slaves  were  able  to 
work  in  Hell's  Bottom.  They  were  well  beaten. 
The  slave  who  could  write  was  so  badly  beaten 
that  he  lived  only  three  months.  But  before  he 
died,  he  wrote  once  more,  to  what  purpose  you 
shall  hear. 

Four  or  five  weeks  afterward,  Tom  Dixon, 
a  slave,  had  his  arm  torn  off  by  a  belt  in  Hell's 
Bottom.  His  fellow-workmen,  as  usual,  made 
a  grant  to  him  from  the  fund,  and  Clancy  and 
Munster,  as  usual,  refused  to  pay  it  over  from 
the  fund.  The  slave  who  could  write,  and  who 
even  then  was  dying,  wrote  anew  a  recital  of 
their  grievances.  And  this  document  was  thrust 
into  the  hand  of  the  arm  that  had  been  torn  from 
Tom  Dixon's  body. 

Now  it  chanced  that  Roger  Vanderwater  was 
lying  ill  in  his  palace  at  the  other  end  of  Kings- 
bury  —  not  the  dire  illness  that  strikes  down 
you  and  me,  brothers;  just  a  bit  of  biliousness, 


A  CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  269 

mayhap,  or  no  more  than  a  bad  headache  be 
cause  he  had  eaten  too  heartily  or  drunk  too 
deeply.  But  it  was  enough  for  him,  being 
tender  and  soft  from  careful  rearing.  Such 
men,  packed  in  cotton  wool  all  their  lives,  are 
exceeding  tender  and  soft.  Believe  me,  brothers, 
Roger  Vanderwater  felt  as  badly  with  his  aching 
head,  or  thought  he  felt  as  badly,  as  Tom  Dixon 
really  felt  with  his  arm  torn  out  by  the  roots. 

It  happened  that  Roger  Vanderwater  was 
fond  of  scientific  farming,  and  that  on  his  farm, 
three  miles  outside  of  Kingsbury,  he  had  man 
aged  to  grow  a  new  kind  of  strawberry.  He 
was  very  proud  of  that  new  strawberry  of  his, 
and  he  would  have  been  out  to  see  and  pick  the 
first  ripe  ones,  had  it  not  been  for  his  illness. 
Because  of  his  illness  he  had  ordered  the  old 
farm  slave  to  bring  in  personally  the  first  box 
of  the  berries.  All  this  was  learned  from  the 
gossip  of  a  palace  scullion,  who  slept  each  night 
in  the  slave  pen.  The  overseer  of  the  plantation 
should  have  brought  in  the  berries,  but  he  was 
on  his  back  with  a  broken  leg  from  trying  to 
break  a  colt.  The  scullion  brought  the  word  in 


270  A   CURIOUS    FRAGMENT 

the  night,  and  it  was  known  that  next  day  the 
berries  would  come  in.  And  the  men  in  the 
slave  pen  of  Hell's  Bottom,  being  men  and  not 
cowards,  held  a  council. 

The  slave  who  could  write,  and  who  was  sick 
and  dying  from  the  pick-handle  beating,  said 
he  would  carry  Tom  Dixon's  arm;  also,  he  said 
he  must  die  anyway,  and  that  it  mattered  nothing 
if  he  died  a  little  sooner.  So  five  slaves  stole 
from  the  slave  pen  that  night  after  the  guards 
had  made  their  last  rounds.  One  of  the  slaves 
was  the  man  who  could  write.  They  lay  in  the 
brush  by  the  roadside  until  late  in  the  morning, 
when  the  old  farm  slave  came  driving  to  town 
with  the  precious  fruit  for  the  master.  What 
of  the  farm  slave  being  old  and  rheumatic,  and 
of  the  slave  who  could  write  being  stiff  and  in 
jured  from  his  beating,  they  moved  their  bodies 
about  when  they  walked,  very  much  in  the  same 
fashion.  The  slave  who  could  write  put  on 
the  other's  clothes,  pulled  the  broad-brimmed 
hat  over  his  eyes,  climbed  upon  the  seat  of  the 
wagon,  and  drove  on  to  town.  The  old  farm 
slave  was  kept  tied  all  day  in  the  bushes  until 


A   CURIOUS    FRAGMENT  271 

evening,  when  the  others  loosed  him  and  went 
back  to  t  e  slave  pen  to  take  their  punishment 
for  having  broken  bounds. 

In  the  meantime,  Roger  Vanderwater  lay 
waiting  for  the  berries  in  his  wonderful  bed 
room  —  such  wonders  and  such  comforts  were 
there  that  they  would  have  blinded  the  eyes  of 
you  and  me  who  have  never  seen  such  things. 
The  slave  who  could  write  said  afterward  that 
it  was  like  a  glimpse  of  Paradise.  And  why  not  ? 
The  labor  and  the  lives  of  ten  thousand  slaves 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  that  bedchamber, 
while  they  themselves  slept  in  vile  lairs  like  wild 
beasts.  The  slave  who  could  write  brought  in 
the  berries  on  a  silver  tray  or  platter  —  you  see, 
Roger  Vanderwater  wanted  to  speak  with  him 
in  person  about  the  berries. 

The  slave  who  could  write  tottered  his  dying 
body  across  the  wonderful  room  and  knelt  by 
the  couch  of  Vanderwater,  holding  out  before 
him  the  tray.  Large,  green  leaves  covered  the 
top  of  the  tray,  and  these  the  body-servant  along 
side  whisked  away  so  that  Vanderwater  could 
see.  And  Roger  Vanderwater,  propped  upon 


272  A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

his  elbow,  saw.  He  saw  the  fresh,  wonderful 
fruit  lying  there  like  precious  jewels,  and  in  the 
midst  of  it  the  arm  of  Tom  Dixon  as  it  had  been 
tprn  from  his  body,  well-washed,  of  course,  my 
brothers,  and  very  white  against  the  blood-red 
fruit.  And  also  he  saw,  clutched  in  the  stiff, 
dead  fingers,  the  petition  of  his  slaves  who  toiled 
in  Hell's  Bottom. 

"Take  and  read,"  said  the  slave  who  could 
write.  And  even  as  the  master  took  the  petition, 
the  body-servant,  who  till  then  had  been  motion 
less  with  surprise,  struck  with  his  fist  the  kneel 
ing  slave  upon  the  mouth.  The  slave  was  dy 
ing  anyway,  and  was  very  weak,  and  did  not 
mind.  He  made  no  sound,  and,  having  fallen 
over  on  his  side,  he  lay  there  quietly,  bleeding 
from  the  blow  on  the  mouth.  The  physician, 
who  had  run  for  the  palace  guards,  came  back 
with  them,  and  the  slave  was  dragged  upright 
upon  his  feet.  But  as  they  dragged  him  up,  his 
hand  clutched  Tom  Dixon's  arm  from  where  it 
had  fallen  on  the  floor. 

"He  shall  be  flung  alive  to  the  hounds!" 
the  body-servant  was  crying  in  great  wrath. 
"He  shall  be  flung  alive  to  the  hounds'" 


A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  273 

But  Roger  Vanderwater,  forgetting  his  head 
ache,  still  leaning  on  his  elbow,  commanded 
silence,  and  went  on  reading  the  petition.  And 
while  he  read,  there  was  silence,  all  standing  up 
right,  the  wrathful  body-servant,  the  physician, 
the  palace  guards,  and  in  their  midst  the  slave, 
bleeding  at  the  mouth  and  still  holding  Tom 
Dixon's  arm.  And  when  Roger  Vanderwater 
had  done,  he  turned  upon  the  slave,  saying :  — 

"If  in  this  paper  there  be  one  lie,  you  shall  be 
sorry  that  you  were  ever  born." 

And  the  slave  said,  "I  have  been  sorry  all  my 
life  that  I  was  born." 

Roger  Vanderwater  looked  at  him  closely,  and 
the  slave  said :  — 

"You  have  done  your  worst  to  me.  I  am 
dying  now.  In  a  week  I  shall  be  dead,  so  it 
does  not  matter  if  you  kill  me  now." 

"What  do  you  with  that  ?"  the  master  asked, 
pointing  to  the  arm;  and  the  slave  made  an 
swer  :  — 

"I  take  it  back  to  the  pen  to  give  it  burial. 
Tom  Dixon  was  my  friend.  We  worked  be* 
side  each  other  at  our  looms." 


274  A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT 

There  is  little  more  to  my  tale,  brothers. 
The  slave  and  the  arm  were  sent  back  in  a  cart 
to  the  pen.  Nor  were  any  of  the  slaves  pun 
ished  for  what  they  had  done.  Instead,  Roger 
Vanderwater  made  investigation  and  punished 
the  two  overseers,  Joseph  Clancy  and  Adolph 
Munster.  Their  freeholds  were  taken  from 
them.  They  were  branded,  each  upon  the  fore 
head,  their  right  hands  were  cut  off,  and  they 
were  turned  loose  upon  the  highway  to  wander 
and  beg  until  they  died.  And  the  fund  was 
managed  rightfully  thereafter  for  a  time  — 
for  a  time,  only,  my  brothers;  for  after  Roger 
Vanderwater  came  his  son,  Albert,  who  was  a 
cruel  master  and  half  mad. 

Brothers,  that  slave  who  carried  the  arm  into 
the  presence  of  the  master  was  my  father.  He 
was  a  brave  man.  And  even  as  his  mother 
secretly  taught  him  to  read,  so  did  he  teach  me. 
Because  he  died  shortly  after  from  the  pick- 
handle  beating,  Roger  Vanderwater  took  me 
out  of  the  slave  pen  and  tried  to  make  various 
better  things  out  of  me.  I  might  have  become 
an  overseer  in  Hell's  Bottom,  but  I  chose  to  be- 


A   CURIOUS   FRAGMENT  275 

come  a  story-teller,  wandering  over  the  land  and 
getting  close  to  my  brothers,  the  slaves,  every 
where.  And  I  tell  you  stories  like  this,  secretly, 
knowing  that  you  will  not  betray  me;  for  if 
you  did,  you  know  as  well  as  I  that  my  tongue 
will  be  torn  out  and  that  I  shall  tell  stories  no 
more.  And  my  message  is,  brothers,  that  there 
is  a  good  time  coming,  when  all  will  be  well  in 
the  world  and  there  will  be  neither  masters  nor 
slaves.  But  first  you  must  prepare  for  that 
good  time  by  learning  to  read.  There  is  power 
in  the  printed  word.  And  here  am  I  to  teach 
you  to  read,  and  as  well  there  are  others  to  see 
that  you  get  the  books  when  I  am  gone  along 
upon  my  way  —  the  history  books  wherein  you 
will  learn  about  your  masters,  and  learn  to  be 
come  strong  even  as  they. 

[EDITOR'S  NOTE.  —  From  "Historical  Frag- 
ments  and  Sketches"  first  published  in  fifty 
volumes  in  4427,  and  now,  after  two  hundred 
years,  because  of  its  accuracy  and  value,  edited 
and  repubhshed  by  the  National  Committee 
on  Historical  Research .] 


A  PIECE  OF  STEAK 


A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

WITH  the  last  morsel  of  bread  Tom  King 
wiped  his  plate  clean  of  the  last  par 
ticle  of  flour  gravy  and  chewed  the 
resulting  mouthful  in  a  slow  and  meditative  way. 
When  he  arose  from  the  table,  he  was  oppressed 
by  the  feeling  that  he  was  distinctly  hungry. 
Yet  he  alone  had  eaten.  The  two  children  in 
the  other  room  had  been  sent  early  to  bed  in 
order  that  in  sleep  they  might  forget  they  had 
gone  supperless.  His  wife  had  touched  noth 
ing,  and  had  sat  silently  and  watched  him 
with  solicitous  eyes.  She  was  a  thin,  worn 
woman  of  the  working-class,  though  signs  of  an 
earlier  prettiness  were  not  wanting  in  her  face. 
The  flour  for  the  gravy  she  had  borrowed  from 
the  neighbor  across  the  hall.  The  last  two 
ha'pennies  had  gone  to  buy  the  bread. 

He  sat  down   by  the  window  on    a   rickety 
chair  that  protested  under  his  weight,  and  quite 

279 


A   PIECE  OF   STEAK 

mechanically  he  put  his  pipe  in  his  mouth  and 
dipped  into  the  side  pocket  of  his  coat.  The 
absence  of  any  tobacco  made  him  aware  of  his 
action,  and,  with  a  scowl  for  his  forgetfulness, 
he  put  the  pipe  away.  His  movements  were 
slow,  almost  hulking,  as  though  he  were  bur 
dened  by  the  heavy  weight  of  his  muscles.  He 
was  a  solid-bodied,  stolid-looking  man,  and  his 
appearance  did  not  suffer  from  being  overpre- 
possessing.  His  rough  clothes  were  old  and 
slouchy.  The  uppers  of  his  shoes  were  too 
weak  to  carry  the  heavy  resoling  that  was  itself 
of  no  recent  date.  And  his  cotton  shirt,  a 
cheap,  two-shilling  affair,  showed  a  frayed  collar 
and  ineradicable  paint  stains. 

But  it  was  Tom  King's  face  that  advertised 
him  unmistakably  for  what  he  was.  It  was 
the  face  of  a  typical  prize-fighter;  of  one  who 
had  put  in  long  years  of  service  in  the  squared 
ring  and,  by  that  means,  developed  and  em 
phasized  all  the  marks  of  the  fighting  beast.  It 
was  distinctly  a  lowering  countenance,  and,  that 
no  feature  of  it  might  escape  notice,  it  was  clean 
shaven.  The  lips  were  shapeless,  and  con- 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  281 

stituted  a  mouth  harsh  to  excess,  that  was  like 
a  gash  in  his  face.  The  jaw  was  aggressive, 
brutal,  heavy.  The  eyes,  slow  of  movement  and 
heavy-lidded,  were  almost  expressionless  under 
the  shaggy,  indrawn  brows.  Sheer  animal 
that  he  was,  the  eyes  were  the  most  animal-like 
feature  about  him.  They  were  sleepy,  lion- 
like  —  the  eyes  of  a  righting  animal.  The  fore 
head  slanted  quickly  back  to  the  hair,  which, 
clipped  close,  showed  every  bump  of  a  villain 
ous-looking  head.  A  nose,  twice  broken  and 
moulded  variously  by  countless  blows,  and  a 
cauliflower  ear,  permanently  swollen  and  dis 
torted  to  twice  its  size,  completed  his  adornment, 
while  the  beard,  fresh-shaven  as  it  was,  sprouted 
in  the  skin  and  gave  the  face  a  blue-black  stain. 
All  together,  it  was  the  face  of  a  man  to  be 
afraid  of  in  a  dark  alley  or  lonely  place.  And 
yet  Tom  King  was  not  a  criminal,  nor  had 
he  ever  done  anything  criminal.  Outside  of 
brawls,  common  to  his  walk  in  life,  he  had 
harmed  no  one.  Nor  had  he  ever  been  known 
to  pick  a  quarrel.  He  was  a  professional,  and 
all  the  fighting  brutishness  of  him  was  reserved 


282  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

for  his  professional  appearances.  Outside  the 
ring  he  was  slow-going,  easy-natured,  and,  in 
his  younger  days,  when  money  was  flush,  too 
open-handed  for  his  own  good.  He  boie  no 
grudges  and  had  few  enemies.  Fighting  was  a 
business  with  him.  In  the  ring  he  struck  to 
hurt,  struck  to  maim,  struck  to  destroy;  but 
there  was  no  animus  in  it.  It  was  a  plain  busi 
ness  proposition.  Audiences  assembled  and 
paid  for  the  spectacle  of  men  knocking  each 
other  out.  The  winner  took  the  big  end  of 
the  purse.  When  Tom  King  faced  the  Wool 
loomoolloo  Gouger,  twenty  years  before,  he 
knew  that  the  Gouger's  jaw  was  only  four 
months  healed  after  having  been  broken  in  a 
Newcastle  bout.  And  he  had  played  for  that 
jaw  and  broken  it  again  in  the  ninth  round, 
not  because  he  bore  the  Gouger  any  ill-will, 
but  because  that  was  the  surest  way  to  put  the 
Gouger  out  and  win  the  big  end  of  the  purse. 
Nor  had  the  Gouger  borne  him  any  ill-will  for 
it.  It  was  the  game,  and  both  knew  the  game 
and  played  it. 
Tom  King  had  never  been  a  talker,  and  he 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  283 

Sat  by  the  window,  morosely  silent,  staring  at 
his  hands.  The  veins  stood  out  on  the  backs 
of  the  hands,  large  and  swollen;  and  the 
knuckles,  smashed  and  battered  and  malformed, 
testified  to  the  use  to  which  they  had  been  put. 
He  had  never  heard  that  a  man's  life  was  the 
life  of  his  arteries,  but  well  he  knew  the  mean 
ing  of  those  big,  upstanding  veins.  His  heart 
had  pumped  too  much  blood  through  them  at 
top  pressure.  They  no  longer  did  the  work. 
He  had  stretched  the  elasticity  out  of  them,  and 
with  their  distention  had  passed  his  endurance. 
He  tired  easily  now.  No  longer  could  he  do  a 
fast  twenty  rounds,  hammer  and  tongs,  fight, 
fight,  fight,  from  gong  to  gong,  with  fierce 
rally  on  top  of  fierce  rally,  beaten  to  the  ropes 
and  in  turn  beating  his  opponent  to  the  ropes, 
and  rallying  fiercest  and  fastest  of  all  in  that 
last,  twentieth  round,  with  the  house  on  its  feet 
and  yelling,  himself  rushing,  striking,  ducking, 
raining  showers  of  blows  upon  showers  of  blows 
and  receiving  showers  of  blows  in  return,  and 
all  the  time  the  heart  faithfully  pumping  the 
surging  blood  through  the  adequate  veins. 


284  A  PIECE  OF   STEAK 

The  veins,  swollen  at  the  time,  had  always 
shrunk  down  again,  though  not  quite  —  each 
time,  imperceptibly  at  first,  remaining  just  a 
trifle  larger  than  before.  He  stared  at  them 
and  at  his  battered  knuckles,  and,  for  the  mo 
ment,  caught  a  vision  of  the  youthful  excellence 
of  those  hands  before  the  first  knuckle  had 
been  smashed  on  the  head  of  Benny  Jones, 
otherwise  known  as  the  Welsh  Terror. 

The  impression  of  his  hunger  came  back  on 
him. 

"Blimey,  but  couldn't  I  go  a  piece  of  steak  !" 
he  muttered  aloud,  clenching  his  huge  fists  and 
spitting  out  a  smothered  oath. 

"I  tried  both  Burke's  an'  Sawley's,"  his 
wife  said  half  apologetically. 

"An'  they  wouldn't?"    he  demanded. 

"Not  a  ha'penny.  Burke  said — "  She 
faltered. 

"G'wan!     Wot'dhesay?" 

"As  how  'e  was  thinkin'  Sandel  ud  do  ye 
to-night,  an'  as  how  yer  score  was  comfortable 
big  as  it  was." 

Tom  King  grunted,  but  did  not  reply.     He 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  285 

was  busy  thinking  of  the  bull  terrier  he  had 
kept  in  his  younger  days  to  which  he  had  fed 
steaks  without  end.  Burke  would  have  given 
him  Credit  for  a  thousand  steaks  —  then.  But 
times  had  changed.  Tom  King  was  getting 
old;  and  old  men,  righting  before  second-rate 
clubs,  couldn't  expect  to  run  bills  of  any  size 
with  the  tradesmen. 

He  had  got  up  in  the  morning  with  a  longing 
for  a  piece  of  steak,  and  the  longing  had  not 
abated.  He  had  not  had  a  fair  training  for 
this  fight.  It  was  a  drought  year  in  Australia, 
times  were  hard,  and  even  the  most  irregular 
work  was  difficult  to  find.  He  had  had  no 
sparring  partner,  and  his  food  had  not  been  of 
the  best  nor  always  sufficient.  He  had  done  a 
few  days'  navvy  work  when  he  could  get  it, 
and  he  had  run  around  the  Domain  in  the  early 
mornings  to  get  his  legs  in  shape.  But  it  was 
hard,  training  without  a  partner  and  with  a 
wife  and  two  kiddies  that  must  be  fed.  Credit 
with  the  tradesmen  had  undergone  very  slight 
expansion  when  he  was  matched  with  Sandel. 
The  secretary  of  the  Gayety  Club  had  ad- 


286  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

vanced  him  three  pounds  —  the  loser's  end  of 
the  purse  —  and  beyond  that  had  refused  to  go. 
Now  and  again  he  had  managed  to  borrow  a 
few  shillings  from  old  pals,  who  would  have 
lent  more  only  that  it  was  a  drought  year  and 
they  were  hard  put  themselves.  No  —  and 
there  was  no  use  in  disguising  the  fact  —  his 
training  had  not  been  satisfactory.  He  should 
have  had  better  food  and  no  worries.  Besides, 
when  a  man  is  forty,  it  is  harder  to  get  into 
condition  than  when  he  is  twenty. 

"What  time  is  it,  Lizzie?"    he  asked. 

His  wife  went  across  the  hall  to  inquire,  and 
came  back. 

"Quarter  before  eight." 

"They'll  be  startin'  the  first  bout  in  a  few 
minutes,"  he  said.  "Only  a  try-out.  Then 
there's  a  four-round  spar  'tween  Dealer  Wells 
an'  Gridley,  an'  a  ten-round  go  'tween  Star 
light  an'  some  sailor  bloke.  I  don't  come  on 
for  over  an  hour." 

At  the  end  of  another  silent  ten  minutes,  he 
rose  to  his  feet. 

"Truth  is,  Lizzie,  I  ain't  had  proper  traininV 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  287 

He  reached  for  his  hat  and  started  rbr  the 
door.  He  did  not  offer  to  kiss  her  —  he  never 
did  on  going  out  —  but  on  this  night  she  dared 
to  kiss  him,  throwing  her  arms  around  him  and 
compelling  him  to  bend  down  to  her  face. 
She  looked  quite  small  against  the  massive 
bulk  of  the  man. 

"Good  luck,  Tom,"  she  said.  "You  gotter 
do  'im." 

"Ay,  I  gotter  do  'im/'  he  repeated.  "That's 
all  there  is  to  it.  I  jus'  gotter  do  'irn." 

He  laughed  with  an  attempt  at  heartiness, 
while  she  pressed  more  closely  against  him. 
Across  her  shoulders  he  looked  around  the 
bare  room.  It  was  all  he  had  in  the  world, 
with  the  rent  overdue,  and  her  and  the  kiddies. 
And  he  was  leaving  it  to  go  out  into  the  night 
to  get  meat  for  his  mate  and  cubs  —  not  like  a 
modern  working-man  going  to  his  machine  grind, 
but  in  the  old,  primitive,  royal,  animal  way,  by 
fighting  for  it. 

"I  gotter  do  'im,"  he  repeated,  this  time  a 
hint  of  desperation  in  his  voice.  "If  it's  a  win, 
it's  thirty  quid  —  an'  I  can  pay  all  that's  owin', 


288  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

with  a  lump  o'  money  left  over.  If  it's  a  Iose5 
I  get  naught  —  not  even  a  penny  for  me  to 
ride  home  on  the  tram.  The  secretary's  give 
all  that's  comin'  from  a  loser's  end.  Good-by, 
old  woman.  I'll  come  straight  home  if  it's  a 


win." 


"An'  I'll  be  waitin'  up,"  she  called  to  him 
along  the  hall. 

It  was  full  two  miles  to  the  Gayety,  and  as 
he  walked  along  he  remembered  how  in  his 
palmy  days  —  he  had  once  been  the  heavy 
weight  champion  of  New  South  Wales  —  he 
would  have  ridden  in  a  cab  to  the  fight,  and 
how,  most  likely,  some  heavy  backer  would 
have  paid  for  the  cab  and  ridden  with  him. 
There  were  Tommy  Burns  and  that  Yankee 
nigger,  Jack  Johnson  —  they  rode  about  in 
motor-cars.  And  he  walked !  And,  as  any 
man  knew,  a  hard  two  miles  was  not  the  best 
preliminary  to  a  fight.  He  was  an  old  un,  and 
the  world  did  not  wag  well  with  old  uns.  He 
was  good  for  nothing  now  except  navvy  work, 
and  his  broken  nose  and  swollen  ear  were 
against  him  even  in  that.  He  found  himself 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  289 

wishing  that  he  had  learned  a  trade.  It  would 
have  been  better  in  the  long  run.  But  no  one 
had  told  him,  and  he  knew,  deep  down  in  his 
heart,  that  he  would  not  have  listened  if  they 
had.  It  had  been  so  easy.  Big  money  — 
sharp,  glorious  rights  —  periods  of  rest  and 
loafing  in  between  —  a  following  of  eager 
flatterers,  the  slaps  on  the  back,  the  shakes  of 
the  hand,  the  toffs  glad  to  buy  him  a  drink  for 
the  privilege  of  five  minutes'  talk  —  and  the 
glory  of  it,  the  yelling  houses,  the  whirlwind 
finish,  the  referee's  "King  wins!"  and  his 
name  in  the  sporting  columns  next  day. 

Those  had  been  times !  But  he  realized 
now,  in  his  slow,  ruminating  way,  that  it  was 
the  old  uns  he  had  been  putting  away.  He 
was  Youth,  rising;  and  they  were  Age,  sink 
ing.  No  wonder  it  had  been  easy  —  they  with 
their  swollen  veins  and  battered  knuckles  and 
weary  in  the  bones  of  them  from  the  long 
battles  they  had  already  fought.  He  remem 
bered  the  time  he  put  out  old  Stowsher  Bill,  at 
Rush-Cutters  Bay,  in  the  eighteenth  round, 
and  how  old  Bill  had  cried  afterward  in  the 


290  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

dressing-room  like  a  baby.  Perhaps  old  Bill's 
rent  had  been  overdue.  Perhaps  he'd  had  at 
home  a  missus  an*  a  couple  of  kiddies.  And 
perhaps  Bill,  that  very  day  of  the  fight,  had 
had  a  hungering  for  a  piece  of  steak.  Bill  had 
fought  game  and  taken  incredible  punishment. 
He  could  see  now,  after  he  had  gone  through 
the  mill  himself,  that  Stowsher  Bill  had  fought 
for  a  bigger  stake,  that  night  twenty  years  ago, 
than  had  young  Tom  King,  who  had  fought 
for  glory  and  easy  money.  No  wonder  Stow 
sher  Bill  had  cried  afterward  in  the  dressing- 
room. 

Well,  a  man  had  only  so  many  fights  in  him, 
to  begin  with.  It  was  the  iron  law  of  the  game. 
One  man  might  have  a  hundred  hard  fights  in 
him,  another  man  only  twenty;  each,  accord 
ing  to  the  make  of  him  and  the  quality  of  his 
fibre,  had  a  definite  number,  and,  when  he  had 
fought  them,  he  was  done.  Yes,  he  had  had 
more  fights  in  him  than  most  of  them,  and  he 
had  had  far  more  than  his  share  of  the  hard, 
gruelling  fights  —  the  kind  that  worked  the 
heart  and  lungs  to  bursting,  that  took  the 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  291 

elastic  out  of  the  arteries  and  made  hard  knots 
of  muscle  out  of  Youth's  sleek  suppleness,  that 
wore  out  nerve  and  stamina  and  made  brain 
and  bones  weary  from  excess  of  effort  and  en 
durance  overwrought.  Yes,  he  had  done  better 
than  all  of  them.  There  was  none  of  his  old 
fighting  partners  left.  He  was  the  last  of  the 
old  guard.  He  had  seen  them  all  finished,  and 
he  had  had  a  hand  in  finishing  some  of  them. 

They  had  tried  him  out  against  the  old  uns, 
and  one  after  another  he  had  put  them  away 
—  laughing  when,  like  old  Stowsher  Bill,  they 
cried  in  the  dressing-room.  And  now  he  was 
an  old  un,  and  they  tried  out  the  youngsters  on 
him.  There  was  that  bloke,  Sandel.  He  had 
come  over  from  New  Zealand  with  a  record 
behind  him.  But  nobody  in  Australia  knew 
anything  about  him,  so  they  put  him  up  against 
old  Tom  King.  If  Sandel  made  a  showing,  he 
would  be  given  better  men  to  fight,  with  bigger 
purses  to  win;  so  it  was  to  be  depended  upon 
that  he  would  put  up  a  fierce  battle.  He  had 
everything  to  win  by  it  —  money  and  glory  and 
career;  and  Tom  King  was  the  grizzled  old 


292  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

chopping-block  that  guarded  the  highway  ta 
fame  and  fortune.  And  he  had  nothing  to  win 
except  thirty  quid,  to  pay  to  the  landlord  and 
the  tradesmen.  And,  as  Tom  King  thus  rumi 
nated,  there  came  to  his  stolid  vision  the  form 
of  Youth,  glorious  Youth,  rising  exultant  and 
invincible,  supple  of  muscle  and  silken  of  skin, 
with  heart  and  lungs  that  had  never  been  tired 
and  torn  and  that  laughed  at  limitation  of  effort. 
Yes,  Youth  was  the  Nemesis.  It  destroyed  the 
old  uns  and  recked  not  that,  in  so  doing,  it 
destroyed  itself.  It  enlarged  its  arteries  and 
smashed  its  knuckles,  and  was  in  turn  destroyed 
by  Youth.  For  Youth  was  ever  youthful.  It 
was  only  Age  that  grew  old. 

At  Castlereagh  Street  he  turned  to  the  left, 
and  three  blocks  along  came  to  the  Gayety. 
A  crowd  of  young  larrikins  hanging  outside  the 
door  made  respectful  way  for  him,  and  he 
heard  one  say  to  another :  "That's  'im  !  That's 
Tom  King!" 

Inside,  on  the  way  to  his  dressing-room,  he 
encountered  the  secretary,  a  keen-eyed,  shrewd- 
faced  young  man,  who  shook  his  hand. 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  293 

"How  are  you  feelin',  Tom?"    he  asked. 

"Fit  as  a  fiddle,"  King  answered,  though  he 
knew  that  he  lied,  and  that  if  he  had  a  quid, 
he  would  give  it  right  there  for  a  good  piece  of 
steak. 

When  he  emerged  from  the  dressing-room, 
his  seconds  behind  him,  and  came  down  the 
aisle  to  the  squared  ring  in  the  centre  of  the 
hall,  a  burst  of  greeting  and  applause  went  up 
from  the  waiting  crowd.  He  acknowledged 
salutations  right  and  left,  though  few  of  the 
faces  did  he  know.  Most  of  them  were  the 
faces  of  kiddies  unborn  when  he  was  winning 
his  first  laurels  in  the  squared  ring.  He  leaped 
lightly  to  the  raised  platform  and  ducked 
through  the  ropes  to  his  corner,  where  he  sat 
down  on  a  folding  stool.  Jack  Ball,  the 
referee,  came  over  and  shook  his  hand.  Ball 
was  a  broken-down  pugilist  who  for  over  ten 
years  had  not  entered  the  ring  as  a  principal. 
King  was  glad  that  he  had  him  for  referee. 
They  were  both  old  uns.  If  he  should  rough 
it  with  Sandel  a  bit  beyond  the  rules,  he  knew 
Ball  could  be  depended  upon  to  pass  it  by. 


294  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

Aspiring  young  heavyweights,  one  after  an 
other,  were  climbing  into  the  ring  and  being 
presented  to  the  audience  by  the  referee.  Also, 
he  issued  their  challenges  for  them. 

" Young  Pronto,"  Bill  announced,  "from 
North  Sydney,  challenges  the  winner  for  fifty 
pounds  side  bet." 

The  audience  applauded,  and  applauded 
again  as  Sandel  himself  sprang  through  the 
ropes  and  sat  down  in  his  corner.  Tom  King 
looked  across  the  ring  at  him  curiously,  for  in 
a  few  minutes  they  would  be  locked  together 
in  merciless  combat,  each  trying  with  all  the 
force  of  him  to  knock  the  other  into  uncon 
sciousness.  But  little  could  he  see,  for  Sandel, 
like  himself,  had  trousers  and  sweater  on  over 
his  ring  costume.  His  face  was  strongly  hand 
some,  crowned  with  a  curly  mop  of  yellow  hair, 
while  his  thick,  muscular  neck  hinted  at  bodily 
magnificence. 

Young  Pronto  went  to  one  corner  and  then 
the  other,  shaking  hands  with  the  principals 
and  dropping  down  out  of  the  ring.  The 
challenges  went  on.  Ever  Youth  climbed 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  295 

through  the  ropes  —  Youth  unknown,  but  in 
satiable  —  crying  out  to  mankind  that  with 
strength  and  skill  it  would  match  issues  with 
the  winner.  A  few  years  before,  in  his  own 
heyday  of  invincibleness,  Tom  King  would 
have  been  amused  and  bored  by  these  pre 
liminaries.  But  now  he  sat  fascinated,  unable 
to  shake  the  vision  of  Youth  from  his  eyes. 
Always  were  these  youngsters  rising  up  in  the 
boxing  game,  springing  through  the  ropes  and 
shouting  their  defiance;  and  always  were  the 
old  uns  going  down  before  them.  They  climbed 
to  success  over  the  bodies  of  the  old  uns.  And 
ever  they  came,  more  and  more  youngsters  — 
Youth  unquenchable  and  irresistible  —  and 
ever  they  put  the  old  uns  away,  themselves  be 
coming  old  uns  and  travelling  the  same  down 
ward  path,  while  behind  them,  ever  pressing 
on  them,  was  Youth  eternal  —  the  new  babies, 
grown  lusty  and  dragging  their  elders  down, 
with  behind  them  more  babies  to  the  end  of 
time  —  Youth  that  must  have  its  will  and  that 
will  never  die. 

King   glanced    over   to    the    press    box    and 


296  A   PIECE    OF   STEAK 

nodded  to  Morgan,  of  the  Sportsman,  and 
Corbett,  of  the  Referee.  Then  he  held  out  his 
hands,  while  Sid  Sullivan  and  Charley  Bates, 
his  seconds,  slipped  of)  his  gloves  and  laced 
them  tight,  closely  watched  by  one  of  Sandel's 
seconds,  who  first  examined  critically  the  tapes 
on  King's  knuckles.  A  second  of  his  own  was 
in  Sandel's  corner,  performing  a  like  office. 
Sandel's  trousers  were  pulled  off,  and,  as  he 
stood  up,  his  sweater  was  skinned  off  over  his 
head.  And  Tom  King,  looking,  saw  Youth 
incarnate,  deep-chested,  heavy-thewed,  with 
muscles  that  slipped  and  slid  like  live  things 
under  the  white  satin  skin.  The  whole  body 
was  acrawl  with  life,  and  Tom  King  knew 
that  it  was  a  life  that  had  never  oozed  its 
freshness  out  through  the  aching  pores  during 
the  long  fights  wherein  Youth  paid  its  toll 
and  departed  not  quite  so  young  as  when  it 
entered. 

The  two  men  advanced  to  meet  each  other, 
and,  as  the  gong  sounded  and  the  seconds 
clattered  out  of  the  ring  with  the  folding 
stools,  they  shook  hands  and  instantly  took 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  297 

their  fighting  attitudes.  And  instantly,  like 
a  mechanism  of  steel  and  springs  balanced 
on  a  hair  trigger,  Sandel  was  in  and  out 
and  in  again,  landing  a  left  to  the  eyes,  a 
right  to  the  ribs,  ducking  a  counter,  dancing 
lightly  away  and  dancing  menacingly  back 
again.  He  was  swift  and  clever.  It  was  a 
dazzling  exhibition.  The  house  yelled  its  ap 
probation.  But  King  was  not  dazzled.  He 
had  fought  too  many  fights  and  too  many 
youngsters.  He  knew  the  blows  for  what  they 
were  —  too  quick  and  too  deft  to  be  dangerous. 
Evidently  Sandel  was  going  to  rush  things  from 
the  start.  It  was  to  be  expected.  It  was  the 
way  of  Youth,  expending  its  splendor  and 
excellence  in  wild  insurgence  and  furious  on 
slaught,  overwhelming  opposition  with  its  own 
unlimited  glory  of  strength  and  desire. 

Sandel  was  in  and  out,  here,  there,  and  every 
where,  light-footed  and  eager-hearted,  a  living 
wonder  of  white  flesh  and  stinging  muscle  that 
wove  itself  into  a  dazzling  fabric  of  attack, 
slipping  and  leaping  like  a  flying  shuttle  from 
action  to  action  through  a  thousand  actions,  all 


298  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

of  them  centred  upon  the  destruction  of  Tom 
King,  who  stood  between  him  and  fortune. 
And  Tom  King  patiently  endured.  He  knew 
his  business,  and  he  knew  Youth  now  that 
Youth  was  no  longer  his.  There  was  nothing 
to  do  till  the  other  lost  some  of  his  steam,  was 
his  thought,  and  he  grinned  to  himself  as  he 
deliberately  ducked  so  as  to  receive  a  heavy 
blow  on  the  top  of  his  head.  It  was  a  wicked 
thing  to  do,  yet  eminently  fair  according  to  the 
rules  of  the  boxing  game.  A  man  was  sup 
posed  to  take  care  of  his  own  knuckles,  and,  if 
he  insisted  on  hitting  an  opponent  on  the  top 
of  the  head,  he  did  so  at  his  own  peril.  King 
could  have  ducked  lower  and  let  the  blow  whiz 
harmlessly  past,  but  he  remembered  his  own 
early  fights  and  how  he  smashed  his  first  knuckle 
on  the  head  of  the  Welsh  Terror.  He  was  but 
playing  the  game.  That  duck  had  accounted 
for  one  of  Sandel's  knuckles.  Not  that  Sandel 
would  mind  it  now.  He  would  go  on,  superbly 
regardless,  hitting  as  hard  as  ever  through 
out  the  fight.  But  later  on,  when  the  long  ring 
battles  had  begun  to  tell,  he  would  regret  that 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  299 

knuckle  and  look  back  and  remember  how  he 
smashed  it  on  Tom  King's  head. 

The  first  round  was  all  SandePs,  and  he  had 
the  house  yelling  with  the  rapidity  of  his  whirl 
wind  rushes.  He  overwhelmed  King  with 
avalanches  of  punches,  and  King  did  nothing. 
He  never  struck  once,  contenting  himself  with 
covering  up,  blocking  and  ducking  and  clinch 
ing  to  avoid  punishment.  He  occasionally 
feinted,  shook  his  head  when  the  weight  of  a 
punch  landed,  and  moved  stolidly  about,  never 
leaping  or  springing  or  wasting  an  ounce  of 
strength.  Sandel  must  foam  the  froth  of  Youth 
away  before  discreet  Age  could  dare  to  retaliate. 
All  King's  movements  were  slow  and  methodi 
cal,  and  his  heavy-lidded,  slow-moving  eyes 
gave  him  the  appearance  of  being  half  asleep  or 
dazed.  Yet  they  were  eyes  that  saw  every 
thing,  that  had  been  trained  to  see  everything 
through  all  his  twenty  years  and  odd  in  the 
ring.  They  were  eyes  that  did  not  blink  or 
waver  before  an  impending  blow,  but  that 
coolly  saw  and  measured  distance. 

Seated  in  his  corner  for   the    minute's    rest 


300  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

at  the  end  of  the  round,  he  lay  back  with  out 
stretched  legs,  his  arms  resting  on  the  right 
angle  of  the  ropes,  his  chest  and  abdomen  heav 
ing  frankly  and  deeply  as  he  gulped  down  the 
air  driven  by  the  towels  of  his  seconds.  He 
listened  with  closed  eyes  to  the  voices  of  the 
house,  "Why  don't  yeh  fight,  Tom?"  many 
were  crying.  "Yeh  ain't  afraid  of  'im,  are 
yeh?" 

"Muscle-bound,"  he  heard  a  man  on  a  front 
seat  comment.  "He  can't  move  quicker.  Two 
to  one  on  Sandel,  in  quids." 

The  gong  struck  and  the  two  men  advanced 
from  their  corners.  Sandel  came  forward  fully 
three-quarters  of  the  distance,  eager  to  begin 
again;  but  King  was  content  to  advance  the 
shorter  distance.  It  was  in  line  with  his  policy 
of  economy.  He  had  not  been  well  trained, 
and  he  had  not  had  enough  to  eat,  and  every 
step  counted.  Besides,  he  had  already]walked 
two  miles  to  the  ringside.  It  was  a  repetition 
of  the  first  round,  with  Sandel  attacking  like  a 
whirlwind  and  with  the  audience  indignantly 
demanding  why  King  did  not  fight.  Beyond 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  301 

feinting  and  several  slowly  delivered  and  in 
effectual  blows  he  did  nothing  save  block  and 
stall  and  clinch.  Sandel  wanted  to  make  the 
pace  fast,  while  King,  out  of  his  wisdom,  refused 
to  accommodate  him.  He  grinned  with  a  cer 
tain  wistful  pathos  in  his  ring-battered  coun 
tenance,  and  went  on  cherishing  his  strength 
with  the  jealousy  of  which  only  Age  is  capable. 
Sandel  was  Youth,  and  he  threw  his  strength 
away  with  the  munificent  abandon  of  Youth. 
To  King  belonged  the  ring  generalship,  the 
wisdom  bred  of  long,  aching  fights.  He 
watched  with  cool  eyes  and  head,  moving 
slowly  and  waiting  for  Sandel's  froth  to  foam 
away.  To  the  majority  of  the  onlookers  it 
seemed  as  though  King  was  hopelessly  out 
classed,  and  they  voiced  their  opinion  in  offers 
of  three  to  one  on  Sandel.  But  there  were 
wise  ones,  a  few,  who  knew  King  of  old  time, 
and  who  covered  what  they  considered  easy 
money. 

The  third  round  began  as  usual,  one-sided, 
with  Sandel  doing  all  the  leading  and  deliver 
ing  all  the  punishment.  A  half-minute  had 


302  A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

passed  when  Sandel,  overconfident,  left  an 
opening.  King's  eyes  and  right  arm  flashed  in 
the  same  instant.  It  was  his  first  real  blow  — 
a  hook,  with  the  twisted  arch  of  the  arm  to 
make  it  rigid,  and  with  all  the  weight  of  the 
half-pivoted  body  behind  it.  It  was  like  a 
sleepy-seeming  lion  suddenly  thrusting  out  a 
lightning  paw.  Sandel,  caught  on  the  side  of 
the  jaw,  was  felled  like  a  bullock.  The  audience 
gasped  and  murmured  awe-stricken  applause. 
The  man  was  not  muscle-bound,  after  all,  and 
he  could  drive  a  blow  like  a  trip-hammer. 

Sandel  was  shaken.  He  rolled  over  and 
attempted  to  rise,  but  the  sharp  yells  from  his 
seconds  to  take  the  count  restrained  him.  He 
knelt  on  one  knee,  ready  to  rise,  and  waited, 
while  the  referee  stood  over  him,  counting  the 
seconds  loudly  in  his  ear.  At  the  ninth  he  rose 
in  fighting  attitude,  and  Tom  King,  facing  him, 
knew  regret  that  the  blow  had  not  been  an  inch 
nearer  the  point  of  the  jaw.  That  would  have 
been  a  knockout,  and  he  could  have  carried  the 
thirty  quid  home  to  the  missus  and  the  kiddies. 

The  round  continued  to  the  end  of  its  three 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  303 

minutes,  Sandel  for  the  first  time  respectful  of 
his  opponent  and  King  slow  of  movement  and 
sleepy-eyed  as  ever.  As  the  round  neared  its 
close,  King,  warned  of  the  fact  by  sight  of  the 
seconds  crouching  outside  ready  for  the  spring 
in  through  the  ropes,  worked  the  fight  around 
to  his  own  corner.  And  when  the  gong  struck, 
he  sat  down  immediately  on  the  waiting  stool, 
while  Sandel  had  to  walk  all  the  way  across  the 
diagonal  of  the  square  to  his  own  corner.  It 
was  a  little  thing,  but  it  was  the  sum  of  little 
things  that  counted.  Sandel  was  compelled  to 
walk  that  many  more  steps,  to  give  up  that 
much  energy,  and  to  lose  a  part  of  the  precious 
minute  of  rest.  At  the  beginning  of  every 
round  King  loafed  slowly  out  from  his  corner, 
forcing  his  opponent  to  advance  the  greater 
distance.  The  end  of  every  round  found  the 
fight  manoeuvred  by  King  into  his  own  corner 
so  that  he  could  immediately  sit  down. 

Two  more  rounds  went  by,  in  which  King 
was  parsimonious  of  effort  and  Sandel  prodigal. 
The  latter's  attempt  to  force  a  fast  pace  made 
King  uncomfortable,  for  a  fair  percentage  of 


304  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

the  multitudinous  blows  showered  upon  him 
went  home.  Yet  King  persisted  in  his  dogged 
slowness,  despite  the  crying  of  the  young  hot 
heads  for  him  to  go  in  and  fight.  Again,  in  the 
sixth  round,  Sandel  was  careless,  again  Tom 
King's  fearful  right  flashed  out  to  the  jaw,  and 
again  Sandel  took  the  nine  seconds  count. 

By  the  seventh  round  Sandel's  pink  of  con 
dition  was  gone,  and  he  settled  down  to  what  he 
knew  was  to  be  the  hardest  fight  in  his  experi 
ence.  Tom  King  was  an  old  un,  but  a  better 
old  un  than  he  had  ever  encountered  —  an  old 
un  who  never  lost  his  head,  who  was  remark 
ably  able  at  defence,  whose  blows  had  the  im 
pact  of  a  knotted  club,  and  who  had  a  knock 
out  in  either  hand.  Nevertheless,  Tom  King 
dared  not  hit  often.  He  never  forgot  his  bat 
tered  knuckles,  and  knew  that  every  hit  must 
count  if  the  knuckles  were  to  last  out  the  fight. 
As  he  sat  in  his  corner,  glancing  across  at  his 
opponent,  the  thought  came  to  him  that  the 
sum  of  his  wisdom  and  Sandel's  youth  would 
constitute  a  world's  champion  heavyweight. 
But  that  was  the  trouble.  Sandel  would  neve/ 


A  PIECE   OF   STEAK  305 

become  a  world  champion.  He  lacked  the  wis 
dom,  and  the  only  way  for  him  to  get  it  was  to 
buy  it  with  Youth;  and  when  wisdom  was  his, 
Youth  would  have  been  spent  in  buying  it. 

King  took  every  advantage  he  knew.  He 
never  missed  an  opportunity  to  clinch,  and  in 
effecting  most  of  the  clinches  his  shoulder  drove 
stiffly  into  the  other's  ribs.  In  the  philosophy 
of  the  ring  a  shoulder  was  as  good  as  a  punch 
so  far  as  damage  was  concerned,  and  a  great 
deal  better  so  far  as  concerned  expenditure  of 
effort.  Also,  in  the  clinches  King  rested  his 
weight  on  his  opponent,  and  was  loath  to  let  go. 
This  compelled  the  interference  of  the  referee, 
who  tore  them  apart,  always  assisted  by  Sandel, 
who  had  not  yet  learned  to  rest.  He  could  not 
refrain  from  using  those  glorious  flying  arms 
and  writhing  muscles  of  his,  and  when  the  other 
rushed  into  a  clinch,  striking  shoulder  against 
ribs,  and  with  head  resting  under  SandePs  left 
arm,  Sandel  almost  invariably  swung  his  right 
behind  his  own  back  and  into  the  projecting 
face.  It  was  a  clever  stroke,  much  admired  by 
the  audience,  but  it  was  not  dangerous,  and 


3o6  A   PIECE   OF   STEAK 

was,  therefore,  just  that  much  wasted  strength. 
But  Sandel  was  tireless  and  unaware  of  limita 
tions,  and  King  grinned  and  doggedly  endured. 
Sandel  developed  a  fierce  right  to  the  body, 
which  made  it  appear  that  King  was  taking  an 
enormous  amount  of  punishment,  and  it  was 
only  the  old  ringsters  who  appreciated  the  deft 
touch  of  King's  left  glove  to  the  other's  biceps 
just  before  the  impact  of  the  blow.  It  was 
true,  the  blow  landed  each  time;  but  each  time 
it  was  robbed  of  its  power  by  that  touch  on  the 
biceps.  In  the  ninth  round,  three  times  inside 
a  minute,  King's  right  hooked  its  twisted  arch 
to  the  jaw;  and  three  times  Sandel's  body, 
heavy  as  it  was,  was  levelled  to  the  mat.  Each 
time  he  took  the  nine  seconds  allowed  him  and 
rose  to  his  feet,  shaken  and  jarred,  but  still 
strong.  He  had  lost  much  of  his  speed,  and  he 
wasted  less  effort.  He  was  fighting  grimly; 
but  he  continued  to  draw  upon  his  chief  asset, 
which  was  Youth.  King's  chief  asset  was  ex 
perience.  As  his  vitality  had  dimmed  and  his 
vigor  abated,  he  had  replaced  them  with  cun 
ning,  with  wisdom  born  of  the  long  fights  and 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  307 

with  a  careful  shepherding  of  strength.  Not 
alone  had  he  learned  never  to  make  a  super 
fluous  movement,  but  he  had  learned  how  to 
seduce  an  opponent  into  throwing  his  strength 
away.  Again  and  again,  by  feint  of  foot  and 
hand  and  body  he  continued  to  inveigle  Sandel 
into  leaping  back,  ducking,  or  countering.  King 
rested,  but  he  never  permitted  Sandel  to  rest. 
It  was  the  strategy  of  Age. 

Early  in  the  tenth  round  King  began  stop 
ping  the  other's  rushes  with  straight  lefts  to  the 
face,  and  Sandel,  grown  wary,  responded  by 
drawing  the  left,  then  by  ducking  it  and  de 
livering  his  right  in  a  swinging  hook  to  the  side 
of  the  head.  It  was  too  high  up  to  be  vitally 
effective;  but  when  first  it  landed,  King  knew 
the  old,  familiar  descent  of  the  black  veil  of 
unconsciousness  across  his  mind.  For  the  in 
stant,  or  for  the  slightest  fraction  of  an  instant, 
rather,  he  ceased.  In  the  one  moment  he  saw 
his  opponent  ducking  out  of  his  field  of  vision 
and  the  background  of  white,  watching  faces; 
in  the  next  moment  he  again  saw  his  opponent 
and  the  background  of  faces.  It  was  as  if  he 


3o8  A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

had  slept  for  a  time  and  just  opened  his  eyes 
again,  and  yet  the  interval  of  unconsciousness 
was  so  microscopically  short  that  there  had 
been  no  time  for  him  to  fall.  The  audience 
saw  him  totter  and  his  knees  give,  and  then 
saw  him  recover  and  tuck  his  chin  deeper  into 
the  shelter  of  his  left  shoulder. 

Several  times  Sandel  repeated  the  blow,  keep 
ing  King  partially  dazed,  and  then  the  latter 
worked  out  his  defence,  which  was  also  a 
counter.  Feinting  with  his  left  he  took  a  half- 
step  backward,  at  the  same  time  upper  cutting 
with  the  whole  strength  of  his  right.  So 
accurately  was  it  timed  that  it  landed  squarely 
on  Sandel's  face  in  the  full,  downward  sweep  of 
the  duck,  and  Sandel  lifted  in  the  air  and 
curled  backward,  striking  the  mat  on  his  head 
and  shoulders.  Twice  King  achieved  this, 
then  turned  loose  and  hammered  his  opponent 
to  the  ropes.  He  gave  Sandel  no  chance  to  rest 
or  to  set  himself,  but  smashed  blow  in  upon 
blow  till  the  house  rose  to  its  feet  and  the  air 
was  filled  with  an  unbroken  roar  of  applause. 
But  SandeFs  strength  and  endurance  were 


A  PIECE  OF   STEAK  309 

superb,  and  he  continued  to  stay  on  his  feet, 
A  knockout  seemed  certain,  and  a  captain  of 
police,  appalled  at  the  dreadful  punishment, 
arose  by  the  ringside  to  stop  the  fight.  The 
gong  struck  for  the  end  of  the  round  and  Sandel 
staggered  to  his  corner,  protesting  to  the  cap 
tain  that  he  was  sound  and  strong.  To  prove  it, 
he  threw  two  back  air-springs,  and  the  police 
captain  gave  in. 

Tom  King,  leaning  back  in  his  corner  and 
breathing  hard,  was  disappointed.  If  the  fight 
had  been  stopped,  the  referee,  perforce,  would 
have  rendered  him  the  decision  and  the  purse 
would  have  be^n  his.  Unlike  Sandel,  he  was 
not  fighting  for  glory  or  career,  but  for  thirty 
quid.  And  now  Sandel  would  recuperate  in 
the  minute  of  rest. 

Youth  will  be  served  —  this  saying  flashed 
into  King's  mind,  and  he  remembered  the  first 
time  he  had  heard  it,  the  night  when  he  had 
put  away  Stowsher  Bill.  The  toff  who  had 
bought  him  a  drink  after  the  fight  and  patted 
him  on  the  shoulder  had  used  those  words. 
Youth  will  be  served!  The  toff  was  right. 


310  A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

And  on  that  night  in  the  long  ago  he  had  been 
Youth.  To-night  Youth  sat  in  the  opposite 
corner.  As  for  himself,  he  had  been  fighting  for 
half  an  hour  now,  and  he  was  an  old  man. 
Had  he  fought  like  Sandel,  he  would  not  have 
lasted  fifteen  minutes.  But  the  point  was  that 
he  did  not  recuperate.  Those  upstanding 
arteries  and  that  sorely  tried  heart  would  not 
enable  him  to  gather  strength  in  the  intervals 
between  the  rounds.  And  he  had  not  had 
sufficient  strength  in  him  to  begin  with.  His 
legs  were  heavy  under  him  and  beginning  to 
cramp.  He  should  not  have  walked  those  two 
miles  to  the  fight.  And  there  was  the  steak 
which  he  had  got  up  longing  for  that  morning. 
A  great  and  terrible  hatred  rose  up  in  him  for 
the  butchers  who  had  refused  him  credit.  It 
was  hard  for  an  old  man  to  go  into  a  fight 
without  enough  to  eat.  And  a  piece  of  steak 
was  such  a  little  thing,  a  few  pennies  at  best; 
yet  it  meant  thirty  quid  to  him. 

With  the  gong  that  opened  the  eleventh 
round,  Sandel  rushed,  making  a  show  of  fresh 
ness  which  he  did  not  really  possess.  King 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  311 

knew  it  for  what  it  was  —  a  bluff  as  old  as  the 
game  itself.  He  clinched  to  save  himself,  then, 
going  free,  allowed  Sandel  to  get  set.  This 
was  what  King  desired.  He  feinted  with  his 
left,  drew  the  answering  duck  and  swinging  up 
ward  hook,  then  made  the  half-step  backward, 
delivered  the  upper  cut  full  to  the  face  and 
crumpled  Sandel  over  to  the  mat.  After  that 
he  never  let  him  rest,  receiving  punishment 
himself,  but  inflicting  far  more,  smashing  San 
del  to  the  ropes,  hooking  and  driving  all  man 
ner  of  blows  into  him,  tearing  away  from  his 
clinches  or  punching  him  out  of  attempted 
clinches,  and  ever  when  Sandel  would  have 
fallen,  catching  him  with  one  uplifting  hand 
and  with  the  other  immediately  smashing  him 
into  the  ropes  where  he  could  not  fall. 

The  house  by  this  time  had  gone  mad,  and 
it  was  his  house,  nearly  every  voice  yelling: 
"Go  it,  Tom!"  "Get  'im !  Get  'im!" 
" You've  got  'im,  Tom!  You've  got  'im!" 
It  was  to  be  a  whirlwind  finish,  and  that  was 
what  a  ringside  audience  paid  to  see. 

And  Tom  King,  who  for  half  an  hour  had 


3i2  A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

conserved  his  strength,  now  expended  it  prodi 
gally  in  the  one  great  effort  he  knew  he  had  in 
him.  It  was  his  one  chance  —  now  or  not  at 
all.  His  strength  was  waning  fast,  and  his 
hope  was  that  before  the  last  of  it  ebbed  out  of 
him  he  would  have  beaten  his  opponent  down 
for  the  count.  And  as  he  continued  to  strike 
and  force,  coolly  estimating  the  weight  of  his 
blows  and  the  quality  of  the  damage  wrought, 
he  realized  how  hard  a  man  Sandel  was  to 
knock  out.  Stamina  and  endurance  were  his 
to  an  extreme  degree,  and  they  were  the  virgin 
stamina  and  endurance  of  Youth.  Sandel  was 
certainly  a  coming  man.  He  had  it  in  him. 
Only  out  of  such  rugged  fibre  were  successful 
fighters  fashioned. 

Sandel  was  reeling  and  staggering,  but  Tom 
King's  legs  were  cramping  and  his  knuckles 
going  back  on  him.  Yet  he  steeled  himself  to 
strike  the  fierce  blows,  every  one  of  which 
brought  anguish  to  his  tortured  hands.  Though 
now  he  was  receiving  practically  no  punish 
ment,  he  was  weakening  as  rapidly  as  the  other. 
His  blows  went  home,  but  there  was  no  longer 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  313 

the  weight  behind  them,  and  each  blow  was 
the  result  of  a  severe  effort  of  will.  His  legs 
were  like  lead,  and  they  dragged  visibly  under 
him;  while  SandeFs  backers,  cheered  by  this 
symptom,  began  calling  encouragement  to  their 
man. 

King  was  spurred  to  a  burst  of  effort.  He 
delivered  two  blows  in  succession  —  a  left,  a 
trifle  too  high,  to  the  solar  plexus,  and  a  right 
cross  to  the  jaw.  They  were  not  heavy  blows, 
yet  so  weak  and  dazed  was  Sandel  that  he  went 
down  and  lay  quivering.  The  referee  stood 
over  him,  shouting  the  count  of  the  fatal  seconds 
in  his  ear.  If  before  the  tenth  second  was 
called,  he  did  not  rise,  the  fight  was  lost.  The 
house  stood  in  hushed  silence.  King  rested  on 
trembling  legs.  A  mortal  dizziness  was  upon 
him,  and  before  his  eyes  the  sea  of  faces  sagged 
and  swayed,  while  to  his  ears,  as  from  a  re 
mote  distance,  came  the  count  of  the  referee. 
Yet  he  looked  upon  the  fight  as  his.  It  was 
impossible  that  a  man  so  punished  could  rise. 

Only  Youth  could  rise,  and  Sandel  rose.  At 
the  fourth  second  he  rolled  over  on  his  face 


3H  A  PIECE   OF   STEAK 

and  groped  blindly  for  the  ropes.  By  the 
seventh  second  he  had  dragged  himself  to  his 
knee,  where  he  rested,  his  head  rolling  groggily 
on  his  shoulders.  As  the  referee  cried  "Nine  !" 
Sandel  stood  upright,  in  proper  stalling  posi 
tion,  his  left  arm  wrapped  about  his  face,  his 
right  wrapped  about  his  stomach.  Thus  were 
his  vital  points  guarded,  while  he  lurched  for 
ward  toward  King  in  the  hope  of  effecting  a 
clinch  and  gaining  more  time. 

At  the  instant  Sandel  arose,  King  was  at 
him,  but  the  two  blows  he  delivered  were 
muffled  on  the  stalled  arms.  The  next  moment 
Sandel  was  in  the  clinch  and  holding  on  desper 
ately  while  the  referee  strove  to  drag  the  two 
men  apart.  King  helped  to  force  himself  free. 
He  knew  the  rapidity  with  which  Youth  re 
covered,  and  he  knew  that  Sandel  was  his  if  he 
could  prevent  that  recovery.  One  stiff  punch 
would  do  it.  Sandel  was  his,  indubitably  his. 
He  had  outgeneralled  him,  outfought  him,  out 
pointed  him.  Sandel  reeled  out  of  the  clinch, 
balanced  on  the  hair  line  between  defeat  or  sur 
vival.  One  good  blow  would  topple  him  ovef 


A   PIECE   OF    STEAK  315 

and  down  and  out.  And  Tom  King,  in  a  flash 
of  bitterness,  remembered  the  piece  of  steak 
and  wished  that  he  had  it  then  behind  that 
necessary  punch  he  must  deliver.  He  nerved 
himself  for  the  blow,  but  it  was  not  heavy 
enough  nor  swift  enough.  Sandel  swayed,  but 
did  not  fall,  staggering  back  to  the  ropes  and 
holding  on.  King  staggered  after  him,  and, 
with  a  pang  like  that  of  dissolution,  delivered 
another  blow.  But  his  body  had  deserted  him. 
All  that  was  left  of  him  was  a  fighting  intelli 
gence  that  was  dimmed  and  clouded  from  ex 
haustion.  The  blow  that  was  aimed  for  the 
jaw  struck  no  higher  than  the  shoulder.  He 
had  willed  the  blow  higher,  but  the  tired  mus 
cles  had  not  been  able  to  obey.  And,  from  the 
impact  of  the  blow,  Tom  King  himself  reeled 
back  and  nearly  fell.  Once  again  he  sttove. 
This  time  his  punch  missed  altogether,  and, 
from  absolute  weakness,  he  fell  against  Sandel 
and  clinched,  holding  on  to  him  to  save  himself 
from  sinking  to  the  floor. 

King  did  not  attempt  to  free  himself.      He 
had  shot  his  bolt.     He  was  gone.     And  Youth 


316  A  PIECE  OF   STEAK 

had  been  served.  Even  in  the  clinch  he  could 
feel  Sandel  growing  stronger  against  him. 
When  the  referee  thrust  them  apart,  there, 
before  his  eyes,  he  saw  Youth  recuperate. 
From  instant  to  instant  Sandel  grew  stronger. 
His  punches,  weak  and  futile  at  first,  became 
stiff  and  accurate.  Tom  King's  bleared  eyes 
saw  the  gloved  fist  driving  at  his  jaw,  and  he 
willed  to  guard  it  by  interposing  his  arm.  He 
saw  the  danger,  willed  the  act;  but  the  arm 
was  too  heavy.  It  seemed  burdened  with  a 
hundredweight  of  lead.  It  would  not  lift  itself, 
and  he  strove  to  lift  it  with  his  soul.  Then  the 
gloved  fist  landed  home.  He  experienced  a 
sharp  snap  that  was  like  an  electric  spark,  and, 
simultaneously,  the  veil  of  blackness  enveloped 
him. 

When  he  opened  his  eyes  again  he  was  in 
his  corner,  and  he  heard  the  yelling  of  the 
audience  like  the  roar  of  the  surf  at  Bondi 
Beach.  A  wet  sponge  was  being  pressed 
against  the  base  of  his  brain,  and  Sid  Sullivan 
was  blowing  cold  water  in  a  refreshing  spray 
over  his  face  and  chest.  His  gloves  had  al- 


A   PIECE   OF   STEAK  317 

ready  been  removed,  and  Sandel,  bending  over 
him,  was  shaking  his  hand.  He  bore  no  ill- 
will  toward  the  man  who  had  put  him  out, 
and  he  returned  the  grip  with  a  heartiness  that 
made  his  battered  knuckles  protest.  Then 
Sandel  stepped  to  the  centre  of  the  ring  and  the 
audience  hushed  its  pandemonium  to  hear  him 
accept  young  Pronto's  challenge  and  offer  to 
increase  the  side  bet  to  one  hundred  pounds. 
King  looked  on  apathetically  while  his  seconds 
mopped  the  streaming  water  from  him,  dried 
his  face,  and  prepared  him  to  leave  the  ring. 
He  felt  hungry.  It  was  not  the  ordinary, 
gnawing  kind,  but  a  great  faintness,  a  palpita 
tion  at  the  pit  of  the  stomach  that  communi 
cated  itself  to  all  his  body.  He  remembered 
back  into  the  fight  to  the  moment  when  he  had 
Sandel  swaying  and  tottering  on  the  hair-line 
balance  of  defeat.  Ah,  that  piece  of  steak 
would  have  done  it!  He  had  lacked  just  that 
for  the  decisive  blow,  and  he  had  lost.  It  was 
all  because  of  the  piece  of  steak. 

His    seconds    were    half-supporting    him    as 
they  helped  him  through  the  ropes.     He  tore 


HIV  THF  WirWF^T  WTT  T  By  H.  M.  STEPHENSON 

<  '  \  I  I  I  L  I  UlrH&b  1  I  I  ILL,  Exceptionally  interesting  and  well  written 
Harry  Waters,  a  young  Cambridge  undergraduate,  becomes  entangled  with  a  girl, 
murders  his  blackmailer,  is  found  guilty  of  murder,  escapes  from  Gaol,  and  gets  safely 
away  to  America.  He  joins  the  Great  War  and  is  finally  reprieved.  The  book  is  of 
absorbing  interest. 

nv  T^^TTT     TvyTT^AXTO  By  PATRICK  LEYTON 

BY  FOUL  MEANS  -  A  smuggling  mystery 

Hermione  Arden  buys  her  dead  husband's  home  on  the  Coast  of  Scotland.  She  hears 
rumors  of  smuggling,  sees  strange  lights,  and  receives  a  scrap  of  paper  on  which  is 
written  the  date  of  her  husband's  death.  A  delightful  young  French  smuggler  comes 
on  the  scene  and  furnishes  a  great  deal  of  amusement,  and  the  solution  of  the  mystery. 

i^r»T-  A  iv/rxr  TTr\T  T  rM*7  By  SUMNER  C.  BRITTON 

DREAMY  HOLLOW  -  d  spooks!!! 


Drury  Villard,  after  amassing  a  most  prodigious  fortune  suddenly  retired  and 
went  to  live  in  Dreamy  Hollow,  the  home  he  built  for  the  girl  he  was  to  marry  with 
hopes  that  the  spirit  of  her  dead  body  would  be  hovering  around  it. 


THE  PHANTOM  RICKSHAW 


and  other  By  RUDYARD   KIPLING 


Mysteries  Kipling's  most  famous  ghost  stories 
The  Phantom  Rickshaw;  My  Own  True  Ghost  Story;  The  Strange  Ride  of  Morrow- 
bie  Jukes;  The  Man  Who  Would  be  King;  "The  Finest  Story  in  the  World  '  —  all  of  these 
between  two  covers.  As  Kipling  says,  "This  is  not  exactly  a  book  of  downright  ghost- 
stories,  as  the  cover  makes  believe.  It  is  rather  a  collection  of  facts  that  never  quite 
explained  themselves." 

WWFXT  mm  Aiir-wQ  By  JACK  LONDON 

WHEN  GOD  LAUGHS     «America's  most  important  writer."-GeorgBrandes 

Gifted  with  a  wonderful  imagination  and  a  vivid  style,  Jack  London  has  provided 

entertainment  for  thousands  upon  thousands  of  readers.    This  is  a  collection  of  short 

stories.  v 

TALES  OF  THE  FISH  PATROL 

This  narrates  the  adventures  that  befell  Jack  London  during  the  year  when  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Fish  Patrol  in  San  Francisco  Bay.  The  conquering  of  the  law 
breaking  elements  of  that  great  region  are  breath-taking. 

TXT  Tin?  ni  n  WFQT  By  GEORGE  FREDERICK  RUXTON 

IN  1  HE  OLD  WEST  -  Indian  fights,  and  'fur  hunting 

This  story  is  the  only  complete  picture  of  the  Old  West  in  the  days  ,  of  the  real 
pioneers  who  blazed  the  trail  across  the  Rockies  to  the  Pacific  in  the  days  before  the 
Mexican  War. 

TUF    TTT^TTPF  OF  TWF  T^TlNir  By  HAMILTON  DRUMMOND 

THE  JUSTICE  O*    THE  KING  A  20th  Century  historical  novel 

Stephen  La  Mothe,  a  brave  romantic  boy  of  24,  is  the  central  interest  of  this  story. 
He  makes  things  move.  King  Louis  XI  sends  Stephen  to  sift  out  a  plot  and  the  trouble 
begins  when  Stephen  falls  in  love  with  a  beautiful  girl. 

THE  GOLD  HUNTERS  By  J" 


A  first-hand  picture  of  life  in  California  Mining  Camps  in  the  early  fifties.  Stories 
of  arduous  travel,  working  claims,  Frisco,  Sacramento,  Sonora  and  "the  diggings." 


